profit from such rtos the only loser in this event is the smb seller this isnt limited to transactions initiated on ecommerce platforms even as smbs expand to selling through facebook instagram or whatsapp they continue to be vulnerable to the rto bane the rto problem is worsened by the fact that industry estimates peg the use of the rto mechanism as the source of 30 of all frauds perpetrated against businesses in the ecommerce ecosystemwith a vast majority of sellers finding it hard to run their businesses while absorbing such costs it is important for indian ecommerce as a whole to solve the issue of rto to improve seller profitability and business healthreasons for and solutions to the rto issueordinarily resolving a problem requires studying it to identify the key variables that are causing the trouble however even where the rto variables involved are charted out there is often no single causative agent that definitively leads to an rto in some instances there will be an error in the address in others the intended recipient will just not be available at the location or on their phone number the complex and varied nature of the different variables make being prepared for rtos or preventing them impossiblethis is because no human being has the control or ability to influence all the different variables even if the ecommerce platform takes due care in collecting addresses and trying to correct errors no one knows all the addresses in the country some incorrect ones are bound to slip through repeated phone calls to verify information and confirm the address would help but customers might be at work or unable to take phone calls regardless of how careful the smb is essentially taking these variables one by one and attempting to engage with them wont work resolving this problem and predicting which transaction will result in an rto and which ones wont will require superhuman dataparsing abilitiesthats where artificial intelligence comes in these systems can track such variables like time of order placing buyers city tier geographical zone order value marketing channel of order acquisition address character length availability of additional information like house number and street numbers product category etc to recognize the latent patterns in this information this helps the system generate and project delivery outcomes and predict the rto probability of individual orders by highlighting the potential causes and the probability of an rto small businesses can be better prepared if the address has a high probability of error the address needs to be doublechecked and confirmed if the buyer has a history of disappearing the seller can opt to cancel the order simply by being aware beforehand these smbs can act to prevent the unnecessary loss caused by a possible rtosmbs and online sellers engaged in ecommerce can access these systems from startup companies that cater to this market segment through these cuttingedge technologies indias smbs stressed by rtos can get muchneeded relief from the threat and waste caused