In Indian e-commerce logistics, Dead Freight occurs when an order is cancelled or refunded in Shopify, but the cancellation event fails to sync to the 3PL aggregator (Shiprocket, Delhivery) in real time. Because the shipping manifest was already printed, the courier bills the merchant for forward freight—even though the package never left the warehouse dock.
On high-velocity stores shipping 3,000+ orders a month, Dead Freight quietly burns ₹15,000 to ₹40,000 every single month.