India Post has turned into a major distribution channel for ticketing and has launched centralized reservation system (CRS) [termed ease-ticket] for all modes of travel like Air, Rail, Bus and Hotel / Car reservations with a focus to make all forms of travel available in a single platform.
The current launch covers 150 post offices in Karnataka, virtually turning the post offices into multi-purpose ticketing outlets.
The postal department plans to expand to 8000 post offices in the next 12-15 months and in future, will also start accepting requests through Internet as well as call center.
Ease-Ticket product provides real time and last seat availability for all airlines, trains, bus and offers following services:
- Air Tickets (Full Service and Low Cost Carriers)
- Train Tickets (Access to Indian railways ticketing through IRCTC website)
- Hotel Room Reservation
- Bus Tickets
- Car Rental Services
- Tour Packages
- And even Mobile Top ups
India post partnership ranges from operators, domestic airlines, bus operators and most hotels in A, B and C cities.
Does this sounds a threat to OTAs? Unlike OTAs, India post has a great distribution channel and the overall operations relies on low cost model – a boon in the times when travel industry commissions are nearing 0%.
What’s your opinion?
Highly recommended read: Indian Post Office set for Brand Makeover, to sell advertising space
Note: As per Google, the site is being reported attacked and is by default, blocked!
Thats a smart move.
The postal service can become the Amazon of web services. It should open up its well spread out and arguably efficient distribution platform so that others can provide value added services over it (instead of trying to control the entire value chain itself)
The last mile connectivity of postal dept combined with technology(printer and networked computer) makes a lot of business plans much more attractive.(redbus.in, bookmyshow etc..)
-Mahesh
Celebrating Life…
I say it was about time. With the advent of internet, e-mail, social networks, et al. Postal Departments were dying slowly. Any of you reader still send letters??
So this is indeed a very smart move. With the kind of reach and distribution network they have, this is gonna be huge. I just hope the service will be on par with the private competitors if not better.
I don’t think it will be that big a threat for OTA’s. OTA’s are far too convenient. I would rather go online then going to the nearest post office. This service won’t be of much appeal to the credit card owning, internet savvy crowd.
Thought they are following the footsteps of US post http://www.usps.com/ but this is an interesting move to sell tickets. given the low broadband penetration and computer illiteracy factors, it would be a huge hit. yet to see the implementation part
another perspective
it may shortlive due to high penetration of mobile telecom and valued added services. Soon everyone would have an access to mobile wallet and call and book facility. Do they really need to go to post offices?
mano
http://www.hexolabs.com
again it is too late to react.. they are force fitting new concepts to keep their employees in job
Had it been the old internet days, this concept would have worked. oops! the times have changed. It is mobile technology which rules.Since mobile wallet and other call-to-book concepts are gaining popularity, people need not go to any post office/physical outlet.
India post could have followed the footsteps of US post. US post tried to be a LOGISTICS company than a ticket/internet company. afterall it is their core competency..
regards,
Mano
http://www.hexolabs.com
Yes, call-to-book, mobile wallet may be the way of the future…
But, change happens very slowly. It takes years for the ecosystem to evolve. I was just reading about expectations of folks at mcheck, paymate etc.. @ http://www.medianama.com/2008/09/223-mobile-payments-only-sustainable-with-20-25-m-customer-base/ . Seems like we are still very far from ubiquity of digital/mobile tickets.
-Mahesh
Celebrating Life…
Thanks for the reference. I should agree that it takes time. In an optimistic note, if they could achieve 20-25m customer base, what would be the reaction from Indiapost? will they still expect crowd to come to their outlets?
Mano
@Mahesh
I do not agree with expectations from mchek etc..- gues its their public face.
the real story is actually quite different!
coming back to the pt – india post might turn out to be a serious threat to OTAs – all said and done, indian govt. has the skills + manpower to execute (classic case : irctc)
Anyone who thinks that Post office(PO) has become irrelevant because of the presence of all the private courier companies should go out and double check. Being in an e-commerce business, I can tell you how painful the state of logistics is in India. There are places in India where internet has reached but not the courier companies.
However, the most unfortunate part seems to be that even PO seems to believe this and is thus trying out so many different ways to remain relevant. It is all well and good that PO should try to leverage its platform for all the things they can do with it but shouldn’t they first try to get up their ass and make that platform worthwhile? Even the basic facilities needed by small businesses are missing. I will give you an example. The speed post facility of PO has good coverage and decent credibility. So it seems like a good option to offer to customers. But how do you find out rates dynamically when a purchase is happening? I was not even hoping to have a web-service from PO, was willing to implement something on my own side but guess what. The rates are given as distance based bands ! So I should go and find out a database of kilometer distance of all the cities in India being served by Speed Post and then even no guarantee that Post Office will accept them when I finally go and post them. So I stick with a courier service, paying higher charges and getting worse coverage but at least he told me before hand how much it will cost to go where and he comes and collects things from my office. Similar problems with cash-on-delivery or COD which incidentally is not even provided by most of the private courier companies but is very important for e-commerce companies.
As somebody said above, PO should really try to become a credible Logistics company first and then try all the fancy stuff.
Overhauling a people heavy govt organization is a huge effort. Esp. the laid back mindset of the “Babus”
I still think opening up its last mile delivery is a low hanging fruit i.e., delivering a printed ticket to the door. Most of the post offices in towns and cities have the necessary infrastructure(printer and network connection) and processes to do this.
Postal dept has to get privatized to put some accountability in its cadre, before it can show up as an efficient Logistics company.
-Mahesh
Celebrating Life…
Pingback: Travel Industry roundup: ClearTrip launches Train Booking, France-based Sprice enters India |Technology and Business Startups in India