THE ONLINE REVOLUTION E-Commerce Has Taken Off in an Unexpectedly Big Way in India, Especially in the Travel and Tourism Segment
Cover Story THE ONLINE REVOLUTION E-commerce has taken off in an unexpectedly big way in India, especially in the travel and tourism segment. Millions of Indians prefer booking airline and railway tickets online. The state- owned Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation Ltd (IRCTC) has emerged as one of the largest online sites and dozens of new online travel sites are being set up, write Aarti Gupta and Shivkamal. -COMMERCE transactions, consultancy, recently released a report on particularly in the business-to- India’s e-commerce potential. According consumer (B2C) domain, are to ‘Internet in India (I-Cube)’, the report on an upswing in India, as both focussing on the Indian e-commerce Ebusinesses and consumers realise the market in 2008, there are several verti- benefit of online transactions. Growing cals: Internet (especially broadband) connec- * Travel, comprising travel aggregators, tivity is fuelling growth for online services. tour operators, hotels and railways The roll-out of broadband services by many * E-tailing, comprising online retailers telecommunication service providers in and online auctions hundreds of cities and towns across India * Classifieds, comprising jobs, matri- has given a big boost to e-commerce. mony, property, automobiles and the At the other end of the value chain, general category public and private sector banks in the * Paid content subscription, comprising country today offer online banking facili- research, articles and exclusive ties to their customers, along with a videos clutch of other services including settling * Digital downloads, from Internet to of utility bills, taxes, third-party payments mobile phones and other transactions. “Based on our discussions with The relative ease of online payments various stakeholders, the size of B2C – through credit cards or through Internet e-commerce industry for the year 2006-07 banking facilities – has enabled rapid was computed to be around US$1.5 growth in e-commerce transactions.
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