Online shopping increases
Whether it's your everyday groceries or your bus/train/plane ticket, you can buy it all online now. Online marketing is a booming business now and makes life easier. And online shopping increases during Eid, puja or other festivals. There is the cash-on-elivery system and nowadays there is even facility to pay with credit or debit cards.
Buying and selling has also increased on the popular social media Facebook. Several shops and fashion houses have cropped up on Facebook. Online shopping has spread from the capital city of Dhaka to Chittagong, Sylhet, Rajshahi and other cities of the country.
Though online shopping has increased, neither the government nor any private concern has any system of storing data in this regard.
However, AKM Fahim Masrur, former president of Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services (BASIS), said that even other countries do not have any system of storing only buying and selling data centrally. And in Bangladesh, most of the shoppers pay in cash. He said that in Bangladesh, about one to two percent of the internet users buy and sell online.
According to the Bangladesh Telecom Regulatory Commission (BTRC), last November 43 million people used the internet in Bangladesh.
Every year in the country about 1.5 to 2 million people shop online every year, it is reported. And every year online sales and purchase is increasing by 15% to 20%.
Google Trends gives an idea of what sort of web portals Bangladeshis like to use the most. In the sites searched through Google, the shopping sites come up fourth. Number one on the search list is SSC exam results, second is HSC exam results and third is Facebook.
The search for exam results is limited to just a couple of days, so if regular internet users in Bangladesh are assessed, the buying and selling sites come second after Facebook.
The biggest web portal for shopping in Bangladesh is Bikroy.com which began in 2012.
Ishita Sharmin, marketing manager of Bikroy.com, said that initially 15 to 20 thousand persons would log onto the site per month to buy items. Now every month about two million interested shoppers visit the site. Every day on average 10 thousand advertisements appear on Biktoy.com. The ads are not free. The ads will have a picture of the item, price and the name and contact details of the seller. Till 6pm on 22 December this year, this site has displayed 381,965 ads for items to be sold.
It's a virtual market: Kamrun Nahar works for an internationally renowned NGO and she lives in Uttara. She leaves the house every morning by 7:30 and returns in the evening around &:30. She works for eight hours at office, but about three hours is spent in traffic jams. She gives time to her children and family chores on the weekend. She doesn't get much time to go shopping. But when she comes home, Kamrun has a habit of surfing the Net in the evening. About a year and a half ago, she discovered online shopping.
Kamrun said, "Online shopping has make life easier for me. Before I would have to go around the shopping centres to buy anything and that was such a waste of time. Now I just visit the web portals and chose what I want. If I like what I see, I buy it."
There are about 20 to 25 online shopping sites at present. These sites sell anything and everything, from land, flats, cars to pots and pans, fish and meat and more. You can even buy quail eggs online!"
The most popular online shopping portals at present are Bikroy.com, OLX, Ekhanei.com and Amar Desh Amar Gram e-shop. Many companies sell their products through web portals too. Cellbazaar (now Ekhanei.com) started the online buying and selling trend in 2011 in the country.
There are two types of buying and selling online. On Ekhanei.com and Bikroy.com, persons can sell their used items. They put up pictures, prices and contact details and interested persons can respond directly to the seller. Nowadays these sites have started advertising for new items too.
The most popular items bought and sold online are electronic products, especially cell phones, computers, laptops, modems, pen drives, etc. Younger people are more into online shopping.
Then there are many web portals that sell and deliver goods themselves. The buyer just chooses the item online and plays with his or her card. Bangladesh's large fashion and ethnic goods retailer Aarong has begun online sales. Expatriate Bangladeshis can order gifts for their families back home from Aarong.
Buying and selling on Facebook: There are a few hundred Facebook shops in Dhaka and other big cities of the country. People can thus do business from their homes. This is now known as f commerce. Fashion houses mostly use Facebook as their outlet.
Online tickets: Airline tickets have long been available online, and over the past decade you can get bus tickets online too, on various routes. Shohoj.com has made it easier, where you can buy bus tickets of 11 popular bus services including Shohag, Hanif, Saudia, AR Travels, TR Travels, and more.
Even vegetables: You no longer have to venture out for your veggies. Selling vegetables online has become a booming business.
Amar Desh Amar Gram e-shop sells vegetables, fish, meat, honey, handicrafts and more. But there's a 15% service charge and everything has to be paid online.
Ataur Rahman, chief executive officer of Amar Desh Amar Gram e-shop, said, "We have 16 thousand regular customers in the capital city alone."