India Post rides e-commerce wave as villagers take to online shopping

Alwar, India

WITH his rickety bicycle and sackcloth mail bag, 62-year-old Indian postman Chet Ram does not look like a worker at the vanguard of an e-commerce revolution delivering everything from mobile phones to cow manure.

He pedals kilometres each day in rural Rajasthan state, ferrying packages to villages and takes payments in cash because most of his customers do not have bank accounts, let alone credit cards.

While in the US, online giant Amazon and its ilk experiment with futuristic drones and one-hour deliveries, in rural India, e-commerce retains a distinctly old-fashioned feel.

Yet the dawn of online shopping is changing the lives of people in rural areas - and is breathing new l…