360buy halts train ticket booking service

A lawyer expressed concerns Sunday about the monopoly of the train ticket booking website run by the Ministry of Railways as online retailer 360buy.com suspended its newly launched online train ticket booking service Saturday, after the ministry announced Wednesday that it hasn't granted authority to any website to sell train tickets.

"The ministry's judgment is a little subjective because there's no evidence showing 360buy has violated any regulation," Tao Qiang, a lawyer at Yingke Law Firm, told the Global Times Sunday.

There is a market demand for different legal channels for booking railway tickets as they are beneficial for the ordinary people, Tao said.

The railway ministry said the 12306.cn it runs was the only authorized website to sell railway tickets around the country, and the ministry will not be responsible for protecting customers' identity information and fund security if they order tickets on other websites, according to a statement posted on the ministry's website.

Tao suspected such regulation supports monopolies.

Beijing-based 360buy has suspended the service for booking railway tickets online due to "the low success rate of bookings", the company said Saturday. The service was launched on March 30.

"The service is still in its trial period," Tan Xiaoci, a public relations staff from 360buy, told the Global Times Sunday, without disclosing why it suspended the service so quickly.

Travel service providers qunar.com and ctrip.com are still selling railway tickets.

The railway ministry said in the statement that no organization or individual can charge a booking fee higher than 5 yuan ($0.79) per ticket as administrative charge allowed by the government. 360buy charged delivery fees ranging from 20 yuan to 35 yuan depending on the distance for delivery when it launched the service. Ctrip.com charges 20 yuan for delivery.

"360buy wants to increase its sales volume through the newly launched travel business, which has cost the company a lot of money," Feng Lin, an e-commerce analyst with China e-Business Research Center, told the Global Times Sunday.

The company needs to keep investing in the travel business to gain a foothold in a fiercely competitive market with such mature and specialized players as ctrip.com, elong.com and qunar.com, which definitely adds to the cost pressure of the 360buy, Feng said.