How to Choose the Best Shipping Carrier for Your Online Store in Tunisia

Here's how to evaluate a shipping carrier before entrusting them with your orders, rather than simply choosing the one that seems cheapest.

1. Why Choosing the Right Shipping Carrier Matters

A shipping carrier isn't just someone who moves a package from point A to point B. Their choice directly influences:

• the perceived delivery time by your customers
• the overall shopping experience
• the rate of refused or returned packages
• Cash on Delivery (COD) collection
• your cash flow
• your overall profitability

The cheapest carrier isn't necessarily the one that costs you the least. A slightly higher delivery fee, but accompanied by a lower refusal rate, better-managed returns, and regular COD remittances, often ends up being more profitable than an option that appears cheaper on paper.

2. Define Your Needs Before Choosing

Before comparing companies, clarify your own needs:

• Where do you primarily deliver?
• How many orders do you process per day or per week?
• Do you only sell with COD, or also with online payments?
• Are your products small and light, or bulky/fragile?
• Do you need home delivery, or is a pickup point sufficient?
• Do you need structured returns management?
• Do you need real-time package tracking?
• Do you need automatic synchronization with your store?

This clarification prevents you from choosing a carrier solely based on the advertised price, without verifying if it truly matches your business.

3. Check Geographical Coverage

Don't just ask, "Do you deliver in Tunisia?" — the answer will almost always be yes. Instead, look at the actual coverage:

• Which governorates and delegations are actually covered, not just major cities?
• Are more remote areas delivered with the same frequency?
• Is delivery to the home, or only to a pickup point in certain areas?
• Do surcharges apply for certain regions?

Coverage can vary significantly from one carrier to another, even when all claim to "cover all of Tunisia."

4. Compare Rates

Never compare only the advertised price of a delivery on a rate sheet. Calculate the real cost:

Delivery + COD fees + returns + failed deliveries + potential surcharges

A carrier with a slightly higher delivery rate but a significantly lower failed delivery rate can, once all costs are added up, prove to be cheaper in the end than an option advertised at a more attractive price.

5. Verify COD Management

Since Cash on Delivery remains central to Tunisian e-commerce, how a carrier manages COD deserves special attention:

• Who actually collects the money from the customer?
• How is this collection recorded and communicated to the seller?
• How often are you paid?
• How can you reconcile delivered orders with payments actually received?
• What exactly happens when a package is returned?

To learn more about setting up COD, consult our guide: How to Accept Cash on Delivery (COD) in Tunisia?

6. Verify Carrier Reliability

Price and coverage are not the only criteria to consider. When you use Cash on Delivery, the carrier collects money from your customers before remitting it to you. You are therefore temporarily entrusting them with a portion of your cash flow.

Before working with a carrier, check the following:

• Their seniority and market presence
• Reviews and feedback from other e-merchants
• The quality of their customer service
• The clarity of their payment terms
• The regularity of COD remittances
• The ability to easily contact the company in case of a problem

It's not about treating every new carrier as suspicious. But when a company handles your order money daily, a minimum of verification and caution is simply good management practice.

Especially Monitor Payment Deadlines

A carrier can perfectly plan for payment once or twice a week. This is not a problem in itself, provided the schedule is clear and respected.

However, if an expected payment does not arrive on the scheduled date, take it seriously. A one-off delay may have an operational or administrative explanation. A second similar incident, however, warrants serious investigation, especially if the company does not provide a clear explanation or continually postpones payment.

The goal is not to panic at the first delay, but to monitor your liquidity risk: the longer the carrier holds your money, the more a difficulty on their part can directly affect your cash flow.

📞 Test Customer Service Before Entrusting Them with a Large Volume

Before definitively choosing a carrier, test their customer service yourself. Ask a few questions and observe:

• the response time;
• the ease of reaching a contact person;
• the clarity of the answers;
• how problems are handled;
• the tracking of a blocked package or a problematic delivery.

You can also ask how they handle a situation where a customer claims to have been poorly contacted by the delivery person, where the address is incorrect, or when the package remains several days without progress.

Good customer service is not noticed when everything is going well. It is especially revealed when a problem arises.

Keep a Second Carrier Active

Avoid depending on a single carrier when your volume or activity justifies it. Even if your primary carrier works perfectly, maintaining a second operational account is excellent practice.

This is not just protection in case of difficulties with your primary carrier. It also allows you to truly compare performance: delivery rate, refusal rate, delays, returns, service quality, COD remittance, performance by region. A carrier can be excellent in one area and much less efficient in another — your store's actual results should guide your choice, not just the advertised rate.

You can start with a primary carrier and gradually test a second one on certain orders. If performance is better in certain regions, you can distribute your shipments accordingly.

7. Verify Delivery Attempts

A package should not be considered truly "attempted" simply because a quick call was made or a missed call appears in the tracking.

Before choosing a carrier, ask precisely:

• how many delivery attempts are actually made;
• under what conditions a second attempt is triggered;
• after how long;
• how customers are recontacted;
• what happens when a customer does not answer the first call;
• at what point the package is considered refused or returned.

The difference between a genuine second delivery attempt and a simple additional call can have a direct impact on your delivery rate and your return rate.

Therefore, don't just compare the number of "attempts" announced by the carrier. Look especially at what actually happens with your orders.

8. Verify Package Tracking

A good tracking system should allow you to know precisely the status of each order:

Prepared → Shipped → Out for Delivery → Delivered

or, on the anomaly side:

Failed → Refused → Returned

Ideally, your customer should also be able to track their package themselves — this reduces the number of "where is my order?" messages you receive and improves the perceived shopping experience.

9. Don't Underestimate Returns

This section deserves special attention, as returns can represent a significant cost for stores working with COD. Check:

• The rate applied for a returned package
• The existence of an automated return process
• The time it takes to physically retrieve a returned package
• If you are automatically notified when a package is returned
• How failed deliveries are managed
• If the carrier clearly distinguishes between refused package, customer absent, customer unreachable, etc.

A carrier that is cheap for delivery but costly or poorly organized for returns can destroy your margin without it being immediately apparent on their rate sheet.

10. Negotiate Your Rates Based on Your Volume

Don't consider the initial advertised rate as necessarily final. As your order volume increases, you have a better argument for negotiation.

You can notably try to negotiate:

• the delivery rate when your delivery rate is high;
• return fees if you already generate significant volume;
• certain surcharges depending on zones or package types;
• possibly COD payment terms.

The goal is not just to get the lowest delivery price, but to reduce your actual logistics cost per delivered order.

11. Verify Integration with Your Store

A manual process generally looks like this:

Store → copy order information → open carrier interface → re-enter information → print label → return to store to update status.

An integrated process looks like this:

Order → shipment → tracking, all from one place.

Check if the carrier offers:

• an integration or an API
• automatic shipment creation
• package tracking synchronization
• label generation directly from your interface
• order status synchronization

On IG60, for example, this synchronization with partner carriers allows you to create a shipment, track the package, and print the label without ever leaving the store dashboard — which eliminates manual re-entry and the errors that come with it, especially at high volume.

12. Test Before Generalizing

Never immediately send all your orders via a new carrier. First, test on a representative sample:

• several different destinations
• different order values
• COD orders
• sufficient volume to observe both successful deliveries, failures, and returns
• the payment/remittance process

A dashboard tracking your actual performance with this carrier is much more useful than any sales pitch you'll be presented with.

13. How to Know if Your Carrier is Truly Performing?

Follow your own numbers rather than relying solely on reputation:

• delivery rate (share of orders ultimately delivered)
• refusal rate
• return rate (share of orders returned to the seller, refused or not collected)
• average delivery time
• average cost per order (all fees included)
• actual COD remittance time
• number of complaints
• successful delivery rate by region

This transforms the question from "which carrier seems reliable?" to "which carrier actually performs for my business, with my products and my customers?"

📊 Compare Carriers with Your Own Data

The best way to know if a carrier works well for your store is to look at your own results, not just their general reputation. On IG60, statistics allow you to compare the delivery rate and return rate based on the carrier used, but also by region.

This allows you to answer very concrete questions:

• Which carrier delivers my orders best?
• Which one generates the fewest returns?
• Does performance change by region?
• Is a particularly high-performing carrier in one area less effective in another?
• Does a region have an abnormally low delivery rate?

For example, if your delivery rate is excellent in most regions but drops sharply in a specific area, this can be a signal to investigate: actual coverage, delays, quality of local service, difficulty reaching customers, or other operational problems.

The goal is therefore not necessarily to choose a single carrier for all of Tunisia. You can use your data to identify the best results for your business and, when relevant, distribute your orders among several carriers.

The best carrier is not necessarily the one with the lowest advertised rate, but the one that offers the best results for your business.

14. Should You Work with a Single Carrier?

Not necessarily.

A single carrier simplifies operational management: one tracking system, one point of contact, one integration to maintain.

Multiple carriers provide redundancy and potentially better coverage or better rates depending on the regions — at the cost of higher management complexity.

Multiple carriers can be relevant when your volume or geographical coverage justifies it.

15. Checklist Before Choosing Your Carrier

• [ ] Geographical coverage verified
• [ ] Delivery rate understood
• [ ] COD fees understood
• [ ] Cost of returns understood
• [ ] Payment schedule known
• [ ] Customer service tested
• [ ] Actual number of delivery attempts verified
• [ ] Negotiation margin explored
• [ ] Package tracking available
• [ ] Customer notifications available
• [ ] Integration/API available
• [ ] Failed delivery process understood
• [ ] Test deliveries performed
• [ ] Actual performance measured

FAQ

What is the best carrier for an online store in Tunisia?

There is no universal answer: a carrier's performance varies depending on your delivery regions, order volume, and product type. The right approach is to evaluate each carrier according to the criteria in this article, then measure its actual performance on your own orders.

How much does e-commerce delivery cost in Tunisia?

The actual cost depends on several elements: the basic delivery rate, COD-related fees, and the cost of returns and failed deliveries. Only adding the advertised price of a delivery gives an incomplete picture of the real cost per order.

Which carrier to choose for Cash on Delivery?

Prioritize checking how the carrier collects and remits COD money, how often, and how long they have been operating in the market — financial reliability matters as much as delivery performance when a company collects your money before remitting it to you.

How to compare carriers?

By tracking your own performance indicators (delivery rate, refusal rate, delays, real cost per order) rather than relying solely on advertised rates or general reputation.

How to reduce returns and refused packages?

Systematic order confirmation before shipment remains the most effective lever, combined with clear product information and transparent delivery fees from the outset.

Can multiple carriers be used?

Yes, and it's even recommended beyond a certain volume: this reduces your dependence on a single partner and allows you to compare actual performance by region.

How to track packages automatically?

By choosing a carrier that offers integration with your e-commerce platform, which automatically synchronizes order statuses without manual re-entry on your part.

Why integrate the carrier with your online store?

Because it eliminates repetitive tasks (copying information, re-entering data, manually printing labels) and reduces human errors that naturally occur when order volume increases.