Taking doorstep logistics services to a new high

Kanailal, a young entrepreneur with a physical disability, has been popular in Kushtia for making “Ektara,” a popular one-string musical instrument used by Bauls and musicians.

He used to receive Tk 300-400 after selling one hand-made Ektara while making a minimum profit against his production cost.

Eventually, his products managed to create a good customer base outside of Kushtia, mostly in Dhaka and Sylhet, but Kanailal’s business and profit were not growing due to middlemen retailers who were taking advantage of his disability.

However, his luck and future changed for the better after he registered with the country’s first digital logistic delivery platform “eCourier” two years ago.

He is now selling his best quality Ektara at Tk 600-700 per piece and making a profit margin of around Tk 200-400. His business is also growing at an exponential rate.

All his recent success has been possible because of eCourier, which has become Bangladesh’s most trusted on-demand last-mile logistics network — offering tech-enabled one-stop delivery solutions — since 2014.

Since he started utilising eCourier’s services, Kanailal’s disability did not matter anymore. Nowadays, Kanailal posts photos of products on his Facebook page and buyers from across the country put their orders online.

Kanailal then makes a booking order on eCourier’s website. Soon, a deliveryman from eCourier’s Kushtia Sadar branch comes to his home and takes the product to an agent point. From there, the product is sent to the buyers — either individuals or retail traders.

In the end, Kanailal is left with a good profit and his customers are happy after buying the product at an affordable price.

Like Kanailal, more than 35,000 merchants are making similar deals to have their products delivered via eCourier just by mentioning pickup and destination locations and paying a convenient charge.

It does not matter how small or big the products are, eCourier will deliver them to every destination — be it inside or outside the country.

eCourier is the first in Bangladesh to have created the largest unique network with home delivery, store pickup and return services, which enhances customer experience and rationalises costs.

Since its inception in 2014, eCourier has delivered over 10 million parcels so far. It currently operates in all 64 districts and has more than 1,250 agents who deliver products at doorsteps.

How it all began

The man who brought about the revolution in the country’s logistic delivery industry is Biplob Ghosh Rahul.

Born in Barishal city, Biplob loved cricket since he was a child. He was one of the 22 cricketers picked to play at the national level in 2001 when he was a 10th grader.

His father was in the sweetmeat business and still has distinct distribution and dealership dealings around the city.

Growing up in Barishal, Biplob completed his SSC from Udayan Secondary School and HSC from Amrita Lal Dey College. Then he completed his BSc in Information and Communication Engineering from the Department of Electronics and Communications Engineering at East West University (EWU) in 2008. He also did an MBA (Executive) at EWU in 2013.

While studying telecommunications, Biplob started working part-time at a call centre of the then mobile operator Aktel (now Robi Axiata) in 2006. He used to work the evening shifts after classes.

In 2010, he moved to the Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services (BASIS) as a program manager, where he learned and worked on marketing, event management and public relations for three years.

Meanwhile, in 2012, he got an opportunity to do a two-month-long post-graduation model course — funded by World Bank — at Hong Kong University as an IT entrepreneur.

In 2013, while working at BASIS, he worked as a consultant at the ICT Division’s Digital World initiative and established good networks with people in the country’s IT industry.

That year, he and one of his friends also founded a company named Softcall. He served as the managing director and worked on call centre services, like outbound sales, marketing and surveys. Later, he became the company’s CEO.

At the end of 2013, a leading courier company approached them to build a call centre service with supporting tools that would enable them to track the parcels en route.

Biplob’s company had only two working developers at the time. Still, they managed to build the solution and named it eCourier. However, the courier company failed to receive it due to internal issues, leaving Biplob frustrated.

“Since we had already developed the solution, I did not want it to go to waste. I decided to launch my own business with it, even though we did not have any plan to turn our IT firm into a courier company.

“But after some soul-searching and fine-tuning the methods, we launched a courier company with top-notch technology in the market at that time. We started with only two cycles at the end of 2013,” eCourier Founder and CEO Biplob told The Business Post.

“The first parcel’s order had come from Jatrabari. Our [Softcall] office was in Mohakhali. I sent a deliveryman from there to pick up the product from the seller’s doorstep and deliver it to the buyer,” reminisced the visionary entrepreneur.

“Back then, traditional courier services only delivered products and they did not do any pickups. So it was a bit of a challenge for us,” he added.

After Biplob and his initial partner went separate ways from Softcall, Biplob decided to join forces with two tech entrepreneurs he met during his visit to Hong Kong and develop eCourier further.

In August 2014, banking on a small initial investment, technology and operational support from MindCurrant, a concern of Dotlines Group, eCourier officially started its journey with two back office employees and four delivery agents.

On the first day of operation, eCourier received delivery orders for 11 parcels from three online merchants. Those three merchants are still working with eCourier.

Developing the operation

In 2014, Biplob also went to the University of Oklahoma in the US on a scholarship. While studying in the Entrepreneurship Exchange Program there, he was attached to FedEx for 40 days. Both experiences propelled him forward and boosted his skills which came in handy after he returned home and resumed working at eCourier.

“Our target was to work with the e-commerce market. But the formal e-commerce business was not popular at the time and that market was not thriving as it is now.

“So we decided to work with F-commerce [Facebook commerce] merchants since their market was flourishing and started taking orders from them and individuals who were mostly selling fashion items and electronic gadgets,” Biplob said.

“Meanwhile, several other companies had also entered the courier service market. But many of them started vanishing after scams and untoward incidents. It took us around two-three years to earn the trust of our clients. That was our turning point,” he said.

He continued, “In 2015, the market was so small that we would receive 600-700 orders weekly. We did not have enough pickups to take products outside Dhaka. We had to send products via other courier services.

“At the time, we had only 20-25 employees and 100 registered merchants with us. We would receive around 200 orders per day.”

However, as eCourier managed to become a trusted name in the market over time, a major shift in the whole operation occurred at the end of 2017 when the company’s head office was moved to Banani.

This office was much bigger with a processing centre and it was managing 5,000-6,000 orders every day. Around 2,500 merchants were registered with eCourier by then.

In 2018, eCourier expanded its operations to 35 districts around the country with a wide coverage range and inked deals with five marketplaces as their warehouse service partners.

The next year, eCourier reached a new milestone when they started serving 12,000 merchant partners and processing 10,000 orders in a day throughout 60 districts.

In 2020, when the Covid-19 pandemic struck, eCourier was the only company authorised by the government and city councils to provide critical delivery services people needed across the country.

They were receiving and processing around 6,000-7,000 delivery orders daily, although they were capable of handling 9,000-10,000 orders at the time.

Last year, at the height of the pandemic, that daily capacity went up to 15,000-16,000 orders.

Biplob said, “Because of the Covid lockdowns, people had become dependent [on us]. It was a great chance for us to gain the trust of more people and clients and we did exactly that by providing proper services, which resulted in the huge customer base we currently have.”

“The government’s support at the time was also highly positive,” he added.

The current situation

Nowadays, eCourier is capable of receiving and processing 25,000-26,000 parcel pickup, delivery or return orders per day through its national processing centre (warehouse) in the city’s Tejgaon area.

The company now has 76 offices across the country, excluding eight branches in Dhaka, which handle 20,000-22,000 orders per day.

“Now we have around 500 management staff and 1,200 non-management employees who deliver products to doorsteps. We also have 29 pickups,” said a proud Biplob.

“We did a valuation of our entire asset at the end of 2019 and it was Tk 300 crore. We are evaluating again. This time it will be around Tk 700 crore,” he added.

eCourier currently works with numerous corporate companies, brands and banks — picking up and delivering products and documents around the country.

“We give 360-degree services on logistics, including person 2 person (P2P) deliveries, air parcel, merchant delivery, corporate and SME delivery, line haul, warehouse, fulfilment and call centre.

“The charge depends on the services and the time it takes to deliver. Usually, it takes 6 hours to deliver inside Dhaka and a day or two in other districts,” Biplob said.

Meanwhile, eCourier has launched the first-ever pre-paid card for F-commerce merchants in collaboration with Mutual Trust Bank and Mastercard.

What’s in the market’s future?

Talking about the company’s future, Biplob said, “We have created a brand value with trust and reliable services. eCourier is number one in digital logistics services and we plan to maintain it with state-of-the-art technology.

“We need more customers to establish brand loyalty and to give the best customer services.”

After 10 years, he said, the distribution system will improve and consumers will be fully habituated to online transactions while the number of digital solutions will increase.

“There will be more competition and that will improve the services. New start-ups will enter the market. That sort of response is always good,” he added.

“It’s true that you will have to pay more for availing a courier service instead of traditional services. But people do that because of trust and convenience.

“The delivery logistic market is huge and one or two companies can’t meet the demand. However, the demand in the physical market is also the same and rather expanding. Experience and trust have increased in online services. But people still want to check the products physically before buying them,” Biplob said.

“Response is always good. What matters most is making a profit or increasing parcel volumes. If the rate decreases, the parcel volume will increase,” he opined.

“Meanwhile, the flow of products, especially agro and perishable items, will now increase across the country thanks to Padma Bridge. Some 20 per cent perishable products would go to waste in general during transit but now that loss rate will significantly go down,” Biplob stressed.

To the newcomers…

The eCourier CEO also shared his views on what any up-and-coming entrepreneurs will need and have to do if they plan to enter the courier market.

“For starters, they will need a minimum of Tk 100 crore for initial investment if they wish to challenge the current market operators. Otherwise, they won’t be able to keep up and create a high brand value like us or the other established companies in the market,” he said.

Alternatively, there has to be innovation as the core focus of the business model to gain signification grounds, he added.

The newcomers need to earn the customers’ trust first and work their way up slowly while building their brand and increasing its value. That will help them stay in the business for a long time, Biplob said.

“They should keep an eye on the problems and work on them diligently. Focus on one issue at a time and move to the next once that problem is dealt with,” he stressed.

He also urged families to support the entrepreneurs when they begin their journeys.

“When I started, there was no such digital courier culture as the ones that exist now. People did not want to fill up a long form for registration. But now, they do it willingly because we have earned their trust and they feel safe doing it by themselves,” said Biplob.