Indian E-Commerce Boom Opens Gates for India Post

Indian E-Commerce Boom Opens Gates for India Post

POST OFFICES IN INDIA EXPECT BUSY YEARS AHEAD

As villagers in the Indian countryside turn to the web for shopping the national postal service might see black digits for the first time in years.

India, with its gigantic population of over one billion, has already seen that the country's e-commerce might very well explode within the near future. This is of course good news for the logistics giant India Post which, according to MailOnline, has struggled with a huge deficit for years.

Creates Work for 155,000 Post Offices

Over the last two years the postal service has signed deals with 400 e-commerce companies, including India's favourite website of October last year, Amazon. The work of delivering goods from the e-retailers to their customers now creates jobs all over the country. India Post has a total of 155,000 post offices and a network of 460,000 employees, MailOnline reports.

- Until recently, people in these rural areas had aspirations but no means to access the market. Now we are delivering women's clothes and latest electronic gadgets even in the remote regions of country like Leh and Ladakh, said Kavery Banerjee, secretary of India Post, to AFP.

A big problem for the e-commerce revolution is however the poor infrastructure that is still the reality in some parts of India, and many postal workers use bicycles which makes it difficult to deliver multiple parcels.

Cash on Delivery For Security

Also, a huge part of the population is still very new to the Internet. This made India Post introduce cash on delivery-payment, which has helped insecure customers to rely on online shopping.

And this has become a huge success. Since the first e-commerce deals were signed, India Post has seen its parcel deliveries become as many as 75,000 a day, which is 15 times more than two years ago.

- These companies give us a variety we don't get in our local markets, quality at competitive rates and a doorstep delivery, said Surinder Singh Yadav, government clerk from rural Ula Hedi village in Neemrana district.

Source : http://www.ecomony.com