RTO (Return to Origin)
MetricRTO is an order that was shipped but never successfully delivered, and was returned to the seller — the revenue is reversed and the shipping cost is paid twice.
You send a parcel, the courier cannot hand it over — nobody home, the customer refuses it, or the phone number is wrong — and the parcel travels all the way back to your warehouse. You paid to ship it out, you pay to ship it back, and you earned nothing.
RTO Rate = Orders Returned Undelivered ÷ Orders Shipped
A brand ships 1,000 orders in a month; 220 come back undelivered. RTO rate = 220 ÷ 1,000 = 22%. At ₹120 of round-trip shipping per RTO, that is ₹26,400 of pure cost against revenue that never existed.
RTO is concentrated in cash-on-delivery orders, where the customer has committed no money and can refuse at the door at zero cost. Reporting ROAS at order time therefore overstates real returns by the RTO rate — a 3.0x order-time ROAS at 25% RTO is a 2.25x delivered ROAS, before the double shipping cost is even deducted.
Last reviewed August 28, 2026.