In India online ticketing has been the most successful force in online E-commerce industry. This also supplemented by the fact that today online travel industry constitutes 78% of the total E-commerce industry in India.
IRCTC -playing an important role?
Its estimated gross annual sales of Rs.3400 crore constitutes 1/3rd of the total ecommerce industry worth Rs.9000 crores in India.
It has been witnessing a healthy annual growth of 100% in no. of tickets sold through online inititatives which stands at 45million tickets FY08.
It owns one of the largest agent networks for selling travel products in India by way of their various inititaives like cyber cafe chains, authorized distributors.
Its tickets are also being sold in association with other travel portals like yatra, cleartrip etc.
IRCTC-potential for Domino effect on E-commerce?
IRCTC currently levies additional charges for i-tickets which ranges from rs.10 to rs.40 and for e-tickets it ranges from Rs.40 to Rs.60. The charges, if these charges are reduced or abolished it could increase penetration and induce more people into E-commerce.
The service is mostly used by agents who charge additional commission apart from charges levied by IRCTC from their customers this again limits the penetration level and if the users are given more payment avenues it could propel many to go for direct transactions.
Online ticketing has always been the entry point for first time E-commerce users thus making more payment avenues available through association with commercial banks may help in getting more traction.
If railways also allow booking of rail cargos and other railway services on a large scale then it can definitely garner more traction in terms of higher transaction size and remove bottlenecks at the same time attracting SME to the fold.
Other services-holding potential:
INDIA POST -another government affiliated organization currently delivers 1,575 crore mails every year linking every nook and corner of the country through a network of 1,54,149 post offices and 5,64,701 letter boxes. The government owned services like India post if implements E-commerce in a serious way then India could definitely remove the barriers of E-commerce industry.
