India Post Gears Up For E-Business

India Post is gearing up to enter booming e-commerce business in the country. Eyeing $9 billion business opportunity, India Post, which has the biggest network, is boosting its infrastructure for real-time tracking of parcels through satellites using a new technology.

The Postal Department will also soon start an SMS facility to inform customers about delivery status of their parcels.

India Post, which is already in tie-ups with e-commerce majors Amazon and Snapdeal, will also have security gadgets like CCTV and access control systems to ensure safety of articles.

Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad has directed them to focus on opportunities in e-commerce and tune infrastructure to facilitate growth of the sector which has huge potential to bring investments and generate new jobs.

As per industry estimates shared by India Posts, e-commerce business in India was about $6 billion in value in 2012 and is expected to reach $76 billion by 2021.

The distribution, delivery or logistics constitutes approximately 12 per cent of the total e-commerce market accounting for about $9 billion by 2021.

India Post, which has world's largest postal network of 1.55 lakh post offices, has seen multi fold rise in business since the time it entered in partnership with e-commerce companies.