E-commerce boom profits India Post

With 30 per cent growth month-on-month for the last five months, the AP and Telangana Circle is looking for multi-fold growth in the next three months in e-commerce revenue

Hyderabad: Forget the pros and cons of e-commerce business, it is celebration time for India Post. With e-commerce sector registering a phenomenal 30 per cent monthly growth, the beneficiary is the postal department which is raking in the moolah.

India Post AP and Telangana Circle is looking to cash in on the festival season beginning with Navaratri and ending with Christmas.Speaking to The Hans India, P V S Reddy, Postmaster General, Business Development,

India Post AP and Telangana Circle said, “40 per cent of the business takes place between October and December. There would be delivery of articles on Sunday as well as on festival days.”

From delivery of 1.23 lakh articles of e-commerce companies in April to 2.17 lakh articles in August, a great leap was being observed in the number of articles.

Sensing the huge potential, the department was planning to develop its infrastructure. Parcel hubs of 2,000 to 12,000 sq ft were being developed at Guntur, Tirupati and Hyderabad.

With 2,532 delivery post offices in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, the postal department is looking forward to make the most of the digital economy.

While private courier companies cannot reach smaller towns and villages, India Post is banking on its local knowledge and wide network.

It is a win-win situation for the vendors as well as the postal department. With facilities such as picking up articles from storehouses of vendors free of cost to providing 60-day credit facility,

the department is making most of it and reaching out to big e-commerce companies such as Amazon, Naaptol, Flipkart and Snapdeal.

“It is also smaller players such as Shopping Zone, RK Mart and others that are catering to many tier-II cities,” says Ramakrishna of the department.

Explaining the advantage of using India Post, a senior officer of Amazon said, “Unlike private courier services where booking is done on volumetric base,

at India Post it is done on mass based weight which means even if the article is big in size only the weight is calculated. Private courier services take even space into account.”

“The Postal Department also picks up the goods from the Amazon fulfillment centre (place where the goods are stored) at Kothur in Hyderabad free of cost we cannot ask for more,” added the official at Amazon.

With the mega sale offers by the big e-commerce players just round the corner, the good old postman was once again getting busy. Reddy says, “Customers not only get their goods within a day, but they can also track their article as it goes through 12 scans from the point of booking till delivery.”

Private couriers charge for return delivery while India Post sends the article back to the vendor free of cost India post collects the goods from the store houses of e-commerce companies free of cost While private players cannot deliver in smaller towns, with 2,532 delivery post offices, the department has a strong network.

By:T P Venu