Also called RTO, undelivered return, failed delivery return
Return to origin, or RTO, is what happens when a parcel cannot be delivered and goes back to the seller. Common reasons are a customer refusing a cash-on-delivery order, a wrong address, or nobody being available after several attempts. Seeing why each parcel came back helps you fix the cause.
RTO is expensive. You usually pay shipping both ways, the stock is stuck in transit for days or weeks, and some parcels come back damaged or opened. COD orders tend to have higher RTO rates than prepaid ones, so many sellers watch which customers and pincodes refuse most.
A seller ships a ₹900 COD order with ₹70 forward shipping. The customer refuses it, and the return costs another ₹70. That is ₹140 lost on a sale that never happened. Kownt X scores COD risk from a customer's past refusals.