COD dropshipping in Morocco: choosing your suppliers

“Without stock” never means that nobody holds stock. In cash-on-delivery dropshipping the goods sit on a supplier’s shelf instead of yours, and it is the supplier, not you, who decides whether a parcel leaves on time, whether it is the right size, and whether a returned item ever becomes sellable again. That is why, in Morocco, the choice of supplier weighs more than the choice of product. This guide is about that choice: which model to ask for, what importing really involves since customs changed the rules, which products can legally be sold, how to test a supplier before spending on ads, what to put in writing, and how returns are paid for when someone else ships.

Three ways to sell without holding stock

Before talking to any supplier, decide which arrangement you are asking for. Each one puts the stock, the packing and the returns in a different place, and most disputes between sellers and suppliers start with two people who each assumed a different one.

The first model is the one most people mean by dropshipping, and it is the one this guide spends most time on, because it hands the supplier the most control. The second is slower but lets you inspect every item before it leaves. The third is no longer stock-free; it is where many sellers end up once a product has proved itself and the per-order arrangement becomes too fragile for the volume. Whichever you choose, name it explicitly in the first conversation and again in the written agreement.

A word on where to look. The suppliers that work for COD sellers are wholesalers who already deliver to shops, small manufacturers (textiles, cosmetics, home goods) and importers who hold stock of their own. Ask each of them the same first question: do you already prepare parcels for online sellers, and for how many? A supplier who has never done it will learn on your orders.

Importing instead: what customs changed

Ordering from a foreign platform and having each parcel sent straight to your Moroccan customer looks like the purest form of dropshipping. Customs closed that route in 2022. According to the communiqué of the Customs and Indirect Taxes Administration (ADII), published in full by Médias24, since 1 July 2022 purchases made through international e-commerce platforms are excluded from the customs duty exemption, whatever their value. The exemption remains only for non-commercial shipments from abroad worth no more than 1,250 dirhams, such as a parcel sent by a relative.

ADII explained the change by what its investigations had found: commercial imports disguised as small parcels, with under-declared values or purchases split between several recipients when the real buyer was one person. A seller who splits a supplier’s shipment into small parcels to slip under a threshold is doing exactly what the rule was written against.

What a commercial import costs depends on the product and on where it comes from. The ADII source quoted by Médias24 gave these general rates in 2022:

• VAT of generally 20% on all products;
• an import duty of generally 40% on clothing and textiles;
• an import duty of 2.5% on electronics in general;
• under free-trade agreements, only VAT is due, with an exception for one partner country.

Those rates date from 2022 and differ from one tariff line to the next, so treat them as orders of magnitude, not as a quote. Before ordering, look the product up in ADIL, the customs online tariff, which is meant for anyone planning to perform an import operation of a commercial nature. Besides duties and taxes, it lists the documents to produce and standards to be met for each product, which is the part beginners forget.

The practical conclusion for COD: the model runs on goods that are already in the country. A parcel that crosses a border for each order cannot be confirmed in the morning and paid in cash at the door the next day. Importing makes sense as the third model above, in batches, declared in the name of a registered business, once a local test has shown that the product sells.

Can this product be sold in Morocco?

A supplier offering a product does not make it legal to sell. Industrial products fall under law 24-09 on the safety of products and services. As Aujourd’hui le Maroc summarises it, any industrial product covered by a national technical regulation and imported to be sold must prove its conformity, and conformity is shown in particular by the “C” marking.

These checks are not theoretical. For 2024, the Ministry of Industry and Trade reported, via Hespress, tests on 7,101 samples of imported products that found 798 non-compliant imports and led to more than 5,583 tonnes of products being banned, mainly textiles and clothing, building materials, electrical appliances, car parts and gas appliances. Clothing and small electrical items are exactly what many COD stores sell.

Buying from a local wholesaler does not take you outside these rules. Market surveillance also works locally: ministry inspectors carry out checks at manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers and may take samples, and the owner of the product must show the inspector the matching invoices. A supplier who cannot give you a proper invoice is handing you a problem you will not be able to explain later.

Some categories have their own regulator: food comes under ONSSA and medicines and health products under the AMMPS, each with its own law. Cosmetics, food supplements and anything that promises a health effect deserve a check with the competent authority before the first ad goes live.

Labelling is the last test. The 2013 decree applying consumer protection law 31-08 requires the mandatory label information to be written in Arabic, possibly alongside other languages, and the instructions for use to be written at least in Arabic. A product that arrives with a label in a single foreign language, or with no instructions at all, is a refusal or a complaint waiting to happen.

One more rule concerns you rather than the product. Selling goods is a commercial activity, and if you work as an auto-entrepreneur the annual revenue cap is 500,000 MAD for commercial activity, against 200,000 MAD for services. Plan the legal form before volume makes the question urgent.

How to test a supplier before the first ad

An ad budget magnifies whatever is wrong with a supplier. A slow preparation time that costs you two orders in a test week costs you two hundred in a good campaign. Test first, then advertise:

1. Identify the business. Legal name, address, common company identifier (ICE) on the invoice. You need invoices you can show, and a counterparty you can find if something goes wrong.
2. Order a sample as a customer would. Have it delivered to an address in another city, through the carrier the supplier will actually use. Note the time from order to handover, the packaging, the label and the state of the product on arrival.
3. Ask for the papers of regulated products: conformity certificate or import documents, and a look at the Arabic label. A supplier who gets defensive at this question is answering it.
4. Check stock depth. How many units are available today, how long a restock takes, and whether the same product is being sold to other stores at the same time. A product shared by many sellers means a price war and tired ad audiences.
5. Test the process, not only the product. Send a few real orders over several days, including one to a remote city and one that you cancel after it is prepared. How the supplier handles the cancellation tells you how they will handle returns.
6. Ask where returned parcels go and how you will know. A supplier with no clear answer has not done this before.

Visit the warehouse if you can. Ten minutes on site show you how orders are prepared, whether stock is counted, and whether your products are stored apart from everybody else’s. Keep the supplier’s details, prices and conditions in one place from the start; the suppliers and purchase orders pages show one way to organise that record.

What to put in writing

Most supplier relationships start with a voice note. That is enough for a first test; it is not enough once you spend money on ads every day. A short written agreement, one or two pages signed by both sides, should cover:

• Price and validity: the unit price, what it includes (packing, label, handover to the carrier), how long it holds and how much notice you get before it changes.
• Stock: a quantity reserved for you, a warning before a product runs out, and what happens to orders already confirmed for an item that is no longer there.
• Preparation time: the cut-off hour for same-day preparation and the maximum delay before handover.
• Packaging: neutral or in your brand, and never the supplier’s own price list or flyer inside the parcel.
• Carrier and sender: who books the shipment, who pays delivery, and whose name and address appear as the sender. That last line decides where returns go.
• Returns: who receives them, who inspects them, how quickly a returned item is put back in stock and reported to you, who pays the return fee, and what happens to damaged items.
• Defects and withdrawal: under law 31-08 on consumer protection, a consumer who buys at a distance has seven days to withdraw, with exceptions such as goods made to the consumer’s specifications. Decide who bears an item sent back in that period or found faulty.
• Payment: when you pay the supplier (upfront, per delivered order, weekly) and the statement that comes with each payment, listing orders, statuses and amounts.
• Customer data: the supplier receives your customers’ names, phone numbers and addresses. Write down that they are used for shipping only.

Returns when the supplier ships

Returns are where supplier dropshipping makes or loses its money. An expert interviewed by Le Matin puts refusals at delivery between 20 and 40% for the merchant. Every refusal is a parcel that left a shelf, travelled, and has to come back to someone.

Where it comes back depends on who sent it. Carriers return undelivered parcels to the sender: Ameex, for instance, writes that undelivered parcels come back to you free of charge. When the supplier is the sender, the parcel goes back to the supplier’s shelf, and your only information about it is what the supplier tells you.

Fees also depend on where the parcel starts. Olivraison’s public grid is filtered by departure warehouse, and for Casablanca it lists 25 DH for a delivered parcel, 0 DH for a return and 10 DH for a cancellation; other carriers charge for returns. The supplier’s city and carrier therefore set part of your cost, and the agreement has to say who pays which line.

Do the sums per delivered order, not per order received. The cost of every refused parcel (delivery or return fee, the ad that brought the order, the confirmation time) is paid by the orders that do get delivered. The COD calculator does that arithmetic with your own numbers. Then put a routine in place:

• every week, reconcile three lists: your order statuses, the carrier’s statement and the supplier’s returns log;
• ask for a photo of each returned item when it arrives at the supplier, before it goes back on the shelf;
• compare the stock the supplier reports with units sent minus units delivered.

A gap that appears once is a mistake. A gap that appears every week is a decision someone else is making with your money.

A checklist before launching

1. The model is chosen and written down: who holds stock, who ships, where returns go.
2. The product is allowed, labelled in Arabic and, if regulated, comes with its papers.
3. If it is imported, the duties are checked in ADIL and paid on a declared commercial import.
4. A sample order and a few real orders have gone through, including a cancellation.
5. The agreement covers price, stock, preparation time, sender, returns, defects, payment and customer data.
6. The cost per delivered order is calculated with a realistic refusal rate.
7. The weekly reconciliation has an owner and a day.

Where Cashod fits

Cashod does not supply products. It handles the order side of the work described above:

• it includes a call center where agents confirm COD orders by phone;
• it can confirm orders over WhatsApp, including with an AI agent;
• it tracks returned parcels, and each carrier’s delivery and return fees are set per city (see returns);
• one Cashod account can manage several stores;
• any other carrier can be added manually, without automatic shipment creation or tracking.

If you are just starting out, the page for new sellers walks through the first steps.