March 8, 2013: IRCTC which is investing heavily into upgrading its IT infrastructure thanks to the allocation in the Railway Budget is planning to venture into e-commerce space. They are planning to use the system capacity which would be free during large part of the day and venture into online retailing. There is a move by IRCTC to spend Rs.90-100 crore to increase transaction capacity which is nw 20,000 tickets a minute to 72,000 tickets a minute. This will also allow IRCTC to make use of the system capacity.
IRCTC would be venturing into e-commerce space and selling books, footwear, mobile phones, furnishings and electronics. They would make sure that online shopping plans do not affect the online ticket booking traffic.IRCTC would be entering the online retail space by following the white-label model and it has invited bids from companies in the e-commerce space to manage the platform.
In the words of R.K. Tandon, IRCTC Managing Director as told to Business Line “We are discussing with existing firms in the e-commerce space to thrash out the details. This will help us monetise our registered user base of over two crore”. With the white-label model, IRCTC would be outsourcing back end jobs and front end jobs will be owned by them. With this move IRCTC is planning to increase asset utilisation and thereby earn more revenue at the same cost.
