MUMBAI: When did you last remember a
postman knocking at you door? Even though it's hard to recall such an incident,
your friendly neighbourhood postman may now appear at your doorstep more often,
delivering a book or a gadget bought on an ecommerce portal.
The department of posts now delivers
more than two lakh ecommerce parcels daily, double of what it used to a year
ago, according to a national estimate.
"Ecommerce fulfillment (shipping)
is a big business opportunity for us," said Ashok Kumar Dash, chief
postmaster general (Maharashtra Circle), India Post. "Associations with
ecommerce portals are likely to go up in the coming days, and the quality of
delivery in farflung areas will be crucial."For India Post, the new-age
business is going to be a key revenue driver with phenomenal rise in daily
mailing volumes as it is increasingly looking at associations with entities
such as Amazon, Flipkart, Snapdeal and YEP, a move aimed at revenue generation
for the 200-yearold straggler.
For instance, in the Mumbai region of
the Maharashtra circle, daily Amazon parcel deliveries have risen to about
7,000 a day at present from a mere 200 shipments in November, two people with
the direct knowledge of the matter told ET.
Flipkart too has started shipments to
its customers using the postal services. In the Mumbai region, it has been
sending around 700-800 parcels daily since the past three months, said one of
the persons in the know of things.
Two years ago, the ecommerce revenue
was below Rs 200 crore, and it was estimated to be about Rs 400-500 crore in
the year ending March 2015.
All-India revenue from ecommerce is
expected to be Rs 900-1,000 crore in FY16 for India Post, according to PN
Ranjit Kumar, postmaster general (Mumbai), India Post. "Revenues are
likely to rise in this segment," he said. Both, however, declined to share
further details. The ecommerce sector in India has grown by 34% ( CAGR) since
2009 to touch .
$16.4 billion in 2014, and is expected
to be about $22 billion in 2015, according to a recent report by PwC. This in
turn has triggered a growth in the logistics business.
India's logistics business is
estimated at $100 billion, and India Post is hoping to cater to the growing
demand in this sector, especially in tier-II and tier-III cities where the
presence of private courier companies is limited. The postal department is
trying to use its post office network of over 1.5 lakh branches .
One of the advantages the department
is its huge land bank which is crucial for logistics business, according to a
senior government official.
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