Old-fashioned dropshipping is dead. The profitable one at least.

Instead, we got back a better option for the final consumer — and far more profitable and stable as a business model for shop owners, media buyers, media-buy agencies (also known as affiliates), and potentially for influencers too.

Say hello to the modern Cash on Delivery, or COD, as it is known in the affiliate marketing industry.

Why Do We Know COD Is the Future?

TrafficManager is the affiliate tracking and management software provider for some of the major affiliate programs and affiliate networks in the Cash On Delivery industry, covering more than 60% of the European traffic and 80% of the Italian traffic.

So yes, we are proudly stating that TrafficManager powers the majority of COD affiliate programs and networks in Europe. If you are working actively in this industry, it’s close to impossible that you haven’t come across our platform at least once (if you’re not already working with it regularly).

Used not only by affiliate programs and networks but also by direct solo media buyers, media-buy teams, and influencer agencies that manage their COD campaigns more effectively using our platform, we saw and felt this industry starting in 2019 from every angle.

So, if you want to know more, stick around and read this article until the end, and we promise that you will learn everything you need to know about this booming industry — no matter if you are a shop owner who has never worked with affiliates, an affiliate, advertiser, media buyer, or influencer agency looking to get into this industry.

We’ll show you how, step by step.
But first…

Why Is It Called the Modern Cash on Delivery?

Actually, it goes back 176 years, to when it was introduced in Switzerland (1849) (source).
So technically, this new industry isn’t new — but it is new in the online marketing industry 😊 (you get the point).

Today, we refer to the modern Cash On Delivery business model as follows:

• E-commerce store (or a simple product page)
• Local warehousing or an e-fulfillment center (with shipping services integrated)
• Call-center confirmation
• Cash at delivery
• Plus a secret ingredient that helped it boom starting in 2021 — affiliates/media buyers scaling COD with paid traffic. And here is where TrafficManager comes into play… but we’ll get into this a bit later.

A Bit of Context — Where Modern COD Really Started

The modern COD model isn’t that new either, and even though Europe is currently the most profitable area to work in, it didn’t start in Europe.

The modern COD has its roots back in 2010, when it was popularized in the e-commerce industry in India by Flipkart, proving that creating a new standard in delivery speed, reliability, and return logistics (via Ekart – their own logistics arm), and allowing the final customer to pay for their purchase directly to the courier after a phone confirmation, unlocked a massive new customer base.

These were customers who either didn’t have access to credit cards to pay online or were not comfortable using them. Many credit Flipkart for this innovation as the moment Indian e-commerce took off — when they “created” this uncontested market space, which led to mass adoption, especially in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities.

Just to understand the magnitude of this change: Amazon later entered India and HAD TO ADAPT to Flipkart’s model, which maintained market leadership, leading to Walmart’s $16 billion acquisition in 2018.

How COD Spread to Europe

After India, also in 2010, this new COD model expanded rapidly in many Asian countries, the Middle East, and Europe, where Italy and Spain were among the first countries to adopt it at scale.

The phenomenon’s growth was also supported by the fact that during that period, especially in Italy and Spain, e-commerce stores were growing fast. But even more important, teleshopping channels were at their peak, with huge audiences calling all day, often jamming their call centers, to buy products advertised on TV.

Both the growing e-commerce industry and teleshopping channels needed the same thing to scale their sales: efficient logistics (just like Ekart in India).

And just like that, an ecosystem of independent warehouses and fulfillment centers, badly needed by these businesses to ship and get paid faster by customers, started to rise — a new industry was born.

Teleshopping channels already had their traffic (audience) established, so you could easily advertise your products there and ship via different independent fulfillment centers. But the prices they were charging for a spot on TV were insane, so not many e-commerce shop owners could afford to get sales that way unless they had significant budgets.

All this continued until one day, when e-commerce owners with lower budgets started testing cheaper traffic sources (Facebook and Google) with advertising (media-buy) agencies — and BOOM.

From this point on, affiliates (self-taught media buyers) and media-buy agencies promoting products via Facebook campaigns instead of teleshopping channels became the main traffic source for e-commerce entrepreneurs and dropshippers.

2015 — The Dropshipping “Threat”

A huge threat for the COD industry started forming: dropshipping.

Around 2015, AliExpress and Oberlo plugged into Shopify, allowing anyone in Europe to put up a store and ship low-cost products directly from China. This model saw massive adoption due to the huge profit margins.

Why did dropshipping become a threat to COD?
Simply because customers would prefer to pay €10 for a product and wait 3 weeks to get it, instead of paying €40 and receiving it in 3 days.

Zero cost for logistics. With just a Shopify store and some cheap Facebook Ads, you could start making money online in just a few hours. All you needed was a small budget and some media-buy skills.

E-commerce communities with “how to” groups and paid courses exploded in France, Italy, Spain, Germany, the UK, but also in Romania, Poland, Greece, and Bulgaria — countries where COD had not matured yet, and the logistics ecosystem (fulfillment + call centers) was still weak. So dropshipping took over very easily.

The IOSS Reform — Turning Point

Everything went well until July 1, 2021, when the EU removed the €22 VAT exemption on imports and launched IOSS (Import One Stop Shop), making all parcels from China taxable overnight and increasing customs delays.

That measure — criticized by many — didn’t kill the market. It improved it.

Yes, it put some profitable businesses in great trouble and “killed” a lot of them. But let’s speak the truth:
We all know that the quality of most of those products sold via dropshipping was bad, and the customer experience was horrible. Most of these businesses had zero return policies or buyer protection standards — they would take your money and bye-bye

The Return of COD

And just like that, the 2021 EU reform pushed affiliates and store owners back to local fulfillment + COD overnight, making COD relevant again for “an army” of people who, until then, were making business with dropshipping products from China.

This time, those who didn’t adapt to the new industry standards (better product quality, customer protection, etc.) slowly but steadily lost their business.

2021–2024 — COD Expansion in Europe

Between 2021 and 2024, the modern COD model was in full expansion across European countries (also “thanks” to the COVID-19 lockdown):

• Poland
• Greece
• Romania
• Bulgaria
• Czech Republic
• Hungary
• And many more

In some cases, 50%+ of online orders were still cash-based, consolidating COD’s maturity by 2024–2025.

Today, media buyers treat COD as “the standard” in CEE, over dropshipping.

Unfortunately, in the past few years, due to some aggressive fraud and misleading campaigns, the authorities became more aggressive with controls and forced everyone to increase compliance (which is great).

In the end, this is how an industry evolves and cleans the “dirt” — from misleading affiliates to shop owners and e-fulfillment centers that allowed these practices.

There are still some isolated cases of misleading and fraud going on, of course, like in any industry that uses affiliate traffic. But the COD industry is learning, adapting, and cleaning house quite fast.

2025+ Forward Prospects

• Italy & Spain: Still strong COD markets for high-quality products.

CEE & Balkans: Romania, Poland, Bulgaria, Hungary, Czech Republic = fastest-growing markets. Very profitable verticals include Nutra, Cosmetics & Personal Care, Smart Home and Kitchen Gadgets, Fashion and Accessories, Wellness Products, Fitness & Body Shaping Products, Senior Care & Wellness Aid, Pet Care, and many more.

The New Frontier — Latin America

In the past months, TrafficManager has seen a substantial increase in requests from LATAM companies (Shopify and WooCommerce store owners) to launch COD affiliate programs on our tracking platform.

Most of them are looking to work with direct COD media buyers from both LATAM and Europe to promote their products in both regions.

For us, these signals are clear: LATAM is the next big COD market, just like Italy and Spain were in 2021, but WAY BIGGER.

Why?
Because in LATAM there are over 600 million people across 33 countries.
More than half (300+ million) shop online.
40% of the population pays with cash.
E-commerce adoption is rising.

And yet, only around 30% of these potential customers (roughly 90 million people) currently have access to COD as a payment method… for now.

(Go back and see what happened after Flipkart proved this method in India, and you’ll understand that history is repeating itself.)

As an even stronger proof of this prediction, we noticed something interesting before the data arrived:

An increasing number of big and small local e-fulfillment companies and call center services from LATAM started approaching us to collaborate.

Déjà vu.

This was exactly what happened when we entered the Italian market in 2020. The wave is rising, and you should get ready to ride it.

How to Launch a COD Affiliate Program (For Shop Owners)

If you own products or a local e-commerce store and you want to expand into other countries fast, and work with affiliates, media buyers, or influencers to promote, here’s what you need:

Step 1: Build an e-commerce store, or a product landing page (both easy to build with Shopify or WooCommerce).
Step 2: Register with an e-fulfillment provider – to handle your product storage, packaging, shipping, and COD payments from customers.
Step 3: Find a call center provider – to confirm your orders by phone, do upsells, cross-sells, and build a good relationship with your customers.
(You can start small by doing the calls yourself until you get volume — this step can come later when you start scaling.)
Step 4: Get an affiliate tracking and management software – to onboard and manage affiliates, media buyers, or influencers, and scale your business via paid ads and/or influencer marketing.
Step 5: Onboard affiliates, media buyers, or influencers — and start making sales.

Complicated? – Yes, 6 years ago.
Today? Not really.

You can get these services from separate providers and connect them to a third-party affiliate tracking platform (which can take weeks to launch)…

Or you can get TrafficManager, plug our dedicated Shopify or WooCommerce plugins into your shop, and create your affiliate program in a few hours, taking advantage of the already integrated e-fulfillment providers like euShipments, Frisbo, eLogy, HelpShip, WebShippy, and many more coming soon.

As you can see, TrafficManager is not just an affiliate tracking and management software for COD.

It also provides all the other missing pieces you need to scale your sales across multiple countries, using media buyers and influencers, including:

• Easy promo tools for media buyers and influencers: leads via API, direct promo links with custom short domains, promo codes, and more.
• Clear approval rate statistics with details about order status, easily filtered by date, status, product, shop, and other details.
• Special user roles designed for small and large media-buy teams, where the team leader has full access over their team’s account settings, statistics, and promo tools.
• Direct integrations via API with Facebook and Instagram (via the official Meta Conversion API), Google (Google API), and TikTok (very soon).
• A strong in-house anti-fraud system to keep your orders clean, including user “fingerprint” tracking tools to prevent misleading traffic from affiliates and “bad” customers (those with high confirmed-by-phone but returned-at-door rates).
• A Lead Management section where you can either share limited access with your call center provider to confirm leads or integrate TrafficManager with any call center CRM via API (we’ll handle it for you if you don’t have a developer).
• Full affiliates credit (sales commissions/payouts) history management with auto-invoicing tools, removing the pain of paying affiliates and handling invoicing manually. You mark the payment as done in the platform, an invoice is generated automatically (or the affiliate uploads theirs), and the requested credit is waived.
• …and much more.

It’s worth mentioning that TrafficManager is fully translated into 12 languages by native speakers, including Arabic (RTL), Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and Romanian — making it easy to use by local affiliates and influencers in all these geos, especially in LATAM, where English knowledge may be limited. More on this: TrafficManager COD & Dropshipping Features

How to Launch a COD Affiliate Network (Without Products or an E-Commerce Store)

If you don’t have your own COD products but you know how to promote, run a media-buy team, or manage an influencer agency, you can build a COD affiliate network by integrating other shops or product owners directly into your network built with TrafficManager.

How?

• Step 1: Get TrafficManager to easily onboard and fully manage your team members or influencers.
• Step 2: Integrate with Shopify or WooCommerce shop owners – using our dedicated plugins, plug into their stores and create affiliate tracking links, affiliate offers, or promo codes for influencers based on in-stock products. Check our Shopify Plugin here and WooCommerce Plugin here
• Step 3: Integrate with other TrafficManager clients – using our Auto-Import ecosystem, import affiliate offers from other platforms with just a few clicks and keep order statuses, payout changes, stock availability, and more synchronized.
• Step 4: Start monetizing – once it’s up and running (typically just a few hours after a training call with us), you can start promoting the imported product offers using your internal media buyers and/or influencers.

TrafficManager for Small and Large Media-Buy Teams

A COD network doesn’t necessarily need to be public. Not all TrafficManager clients use our platform to launch a COD affiliate network for external affiliates.

In fact, many use our software for their internal team management and operations.

They centralize all the offers they work with in one dashboard, then divide internal operations using our user roles:

• Media buyers get access to promo tools and API integrations.
• Finance departments manage payments and invoicing.
• Team leaders have sub-admin access.
• Everything is organized and controlled.

And all this starts at €399/month.

Final Thoughts

Cash on Delivery is no longer an “alternative” in the affiliate marketing industry — it’s the new standard in e-commerce affiliate marketing.

And besides solo media buyers, media-buy agencies and influencer agencies are now jumping into this pool too.

If you’re a product or shop owner who wants a piece of this industry, reach out for a demo and let the magic happen.

All the best,
The TrafficManager team

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