India Post, the government operated postal service, signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with logistics aggregator firms Shiprocket and Pickrr to help MSMEs and enhance last-mile e-commerce delivery services across the country.

The partnership will provide last-mile connectivity to the e-commerce market player and will facilitate the penetration of e-commerce services beyond large cities and towns, Saahil Goel, cofounder & CEO of Shiprocket, said.

The collaboration will also enable automated shipping and faster delivery for merchants, resulting in cost-effectiveness and business growth.

India Post announced the integration of their IT systems with Shiprocket. The integration has been achieved through various APIs including tariff, booking, label generation, pickup, and track & trace.

“This partnership between India Post and Shiprocket will provide shipping and last-mile delivery services to Shiprocket’s three lakh strong seller base which includes Startups and a large number of small and medium businesses. The MoU marks a significant milestone for taking e-commerce to the last mile and is expected to benefit millions of customers all over country,” a statement from India Post, announcing the MoU, said.

The MoU was signed on Friday at New Delhi’s Dak Bhavan in the presence of director general, Postal Services, Alok Sharma and representatives from Shiprocket.

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ET reported in October last year that the government-backed ecommerce platform Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) had onboarded the logistics service provider to expand to intercity deliveries after running pilots within the city.

In December last year, Shiprocket had signed a MoU with Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO) to support micro, small and medium enterprise (MSME) exporters in India showcasing their products on the Indian Business Portal (IBP). Shiprocket had already integrated with Amazon, Shopify and many more, allowing IBP sellers and FIEO members to ship products sold on various marketplaces easily through their B2C orders to more than 220 countries.

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