E-retail firms boost Postal Department revenue

MUMBAI: With e-commerce platforms increasingly turning to the Indian Posts to deliver their orders to customers, the fast flourishing e-retail business has become a revenue generator for the state-run agency, whose traditional operations are dented by the deep penetration of e-mail and mobile phones.

Realising the potential, the Postal Department has set up a dedicated e-commerce and parcel processing center in the country's commercial hub Mumbai.
Spread across 12,000 sq ft, the facility at Parel in the city has bagged good business in a short span, handling around 5,000 orders a day.

The department officials expect at this pace the traffic would soon increase to 10,000 parcels per day. The facility has a capacity to process 30,000 parcels per day.

Quite a few e-commerce companies have already approached the department seeking tie-up with India's oldest and most trusted National postal facility including major players like Amazon, Snapdeal, Flipkart, E-bey, Telebrand India, TVC network, Quick Services and Red Box.

"The commercial agreement started taking place last year and by now we have had commercial tie-up with 46 e-commerce companies in Mumbai region, 7 in Pune and 6 in Goa," said a senior official from the Postal Department.

Source : http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/