
India's Great Parcel Race - anishkothari
http://graphics.wsj.com/indias-great-parcel-race/
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jestinjoy1
e-commerce changed the way people buy things here in remote places in India.
They could buy things that was not even in their dreams few years back.
E-commerce advertisements cover most front pages of newspapers now. More
startups are coming up in logistics space. Amazon, Alibaba etc has started
investing here seeing the market potential. Logistics here is a big problem.
Since local sellers are feeling the heat, they are doing everything they can
to stop e-commerce players.

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hackuser
How will this impact people? Many of those local sellers already are very
poor. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that families are starving as a
consequence. For example, thousands of farmers in India are committing suicide
per year, apparently due to economic conditions.

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sremani
The suicide by drinking pesticides were happening for a long time, especially
since mid-90s. The rate of increase has more to do with public policy , price
controls and sub-par pesticides, fertilizers and seeds. The cock-tail of GATT,
WTO restriction on farmer subsidies coupled with price controls and
adulterated products, has created the farmer suicide hell.

ECommerce and logistics have nothing to do with it.

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hvmonk
tldr: Distance: 1,865.9 km Delivery Cost: 45 rupees ($0.70) Modes of
transport: Three Time in transit: 32 hours 25 minutes Total time: Two days, 19
hours, 6 minutes

That's pretty good.

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johansch
I'd say it's pretty sad.

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johansch
"India's per capita income (nominal) was $ 1570 in 2013."

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_in_India](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_in_India)

So like 30-50 times less than a "western" country. :/

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sremani
India is a very divided country. So, if you are catering to top 10% of the
population you are already in the ball-park of 100 million people, that pretty
much beats out every Western country except USA. The number in middle class is
about 400million, that is the number to focus at least for immediate future.
The rest of 800 million, well, God Bless them!

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johansch
... because India won't take care of them?

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fillskills
There is little justice in India if you do no have some kind of influence. So
if you are poor = little real justice = yes, India currently doesnt care very
well for their poor.

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subnaught
True, and not necessarily a situation unique to India.

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avinassh
I am very to surprised to see article talking about Shopclues, which is
notoriously famous for sending counterfiet items instead of genuine. You could
buy pirated Windows or Xbox/PS game DVDs from that site.

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bandrami
The lack of a consistent address system in India is definitely a challenge for
a lot of provisioning (my address includes the phrase "Lot where the Cotton
Mill was").

