Home ›› 12 Feb 2023 ›› Business Connect
It all came from the inquisitive mind of a student at a Jamalpur school.
In the beginning, teachers loved his curious intellect and welcomed his barrage of questions as he pushed to gather more and more knowledge. Apart from his teachers, he also used to search for the answers to his queries by collecting books from everywhere and reading them.
However, during his college years, he found out that his questions were not being welcomed anymore and were leading to the teachers’ rebuke. This only made him choose books for learning new things.
And then, it was as author Vera Nazarian said, “Whenever you read a good book, somewhere in the world a door opens to allow in more light.”
As such, the boy not only allowed more light to get into the world but also grew up to become a beacon himself by building the largest online book marketplace — rokomari.com — for the people of Bangladesh and elsewhere around the world.
At present, Rokomari has a collection of over 2,00,000 books, including 5,000 electronic books (e-books), from over 80,000 writers and more than 8,000 publishers. The company also currently employs more than 150 people and delivers books to 30 countries worldwide.
The mastermind behind the operation since its inception in 2012 is Mahmudul Hasan Sohag.
He currently serves as the chairman of OnnoRokom Group that has six concerns — Rokomari.com, TechShopBD.com, OnnoRokom Software Ltd, OnnoRokom Electronics Ltd, OnnoRokom Prokashonee and Pi Labs Bangladesh Ltd.
Sohag was born on June 7, 1983, in Sharishbari Upazila of Jamalpur. He completed SSC from Riaz Uddin Talukdar High School in 1997, ranking fourth in the national merit list. He completed his HSC from Dhaka College in 1999, ranking sixth on the merit list.
Later, in 2000, he got admitted to the Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) Department at Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET). While studying there, Sohag still faced the same problem as he did in college with asking questions in class.
As it created a problem to adjust with his peers and teachers, he did not manage to do well in his examinations. Under the circumstances, Sohag decided to use his free time to tutor and provide coaching to students.
He rented a room in the Arambagh area of Dhaka’s Motijheel and started “Udvash,” which over the years has become one of the leading coaching centres in the country.
“I suffered because I couldn’t ask my teachers questions. That’s why I wanted to create a space and platform, where no teacher will discourage students from asking questions even if they don’t know the answer.
“From that vision, I launched coaching centre Udvash at the age of 19, although I was not from a business background or had no idea about entrepreneurship,” Sohag said while talking to The Business Post.
Birth of Rokomari
Between Udvash and Rokomari, Sohag had become an aspiring entrepreneur with his journey of innovation well on the way.
Before Rokomari’s birth, he had taken on more than 30 projects that failed and started 10-12 companies that were not successful.
Sohag and his fellow associates had tried to develop a professional job platform like LinkedIn before launching Rokomari. It did not pan out and failed, demoralising the whole team. But then they got help from one of the leading newspapers of the country, the Daily Prothom Alo.
During the 2011 ICC Cricket World Cup, they successfully made a prediction game, named CrickPaul. It became so popular quickly that Sohag and his collaborators gained the confidence to explore new ideas.
Soon after, a group of juniors from the CSE department came to Sohag and shared their idea to launch an e-commerce business with books.
Seeing its potential, Sohag joined Abul Hasan Liton, Khairul Anam Ronnie, Ahteshamul Shams Rakib and Jubair Bin Amin in this venture and started planning. Liton was the one who came up with the name Rokomari.
Under Sohag’s supervision, a small team started to build the website in December 2011. The 10-member team worked in a small room in the Udvash coaching centre at Arambagh until the site was ready.
At the same time, they also reached out to many publishers to convince them to have their books sold online. With permission to sell 100 books from a handful of publishers, Sohag and his team launched rokomari.com on January 19, 2012, just weeks before the annual Ekushey Boi Mela.
“I feel that, as a nation, we have low enthusiasm for reading books. Also, it’s difficult to find books of different genres in one place at the same time, except during Ekushey Boi Mela. That’s why I was eager to build this marketplace. It matched my passion perfectly,” said Sohag.
Challenges
Starting an e-commerce start-up in Bangladesh was not easy back in 2012. In a country, where the book industry was yet to be well-structured, e-commerce was only a vague idea to many people at that time, he said.
“Online shopping was merely starting to grow and it was marred by massive trust issues. The business was completely new to local markets because no renowned publishing companies were selling books online.
“People weren’t sure about the quality of products they were ordering online. Hence, the payment system was also in question,” Sohag added.
Random book shops were on their way to oblivion, except for the ones at Banglabazar, Shahbagh and Nilkhet. And that is where Rokomari came in with the solutions. But there were some big challenges.
“Firstly, the Rokomari team needed to convince the publishers — both major and minor. We had to show them the possibility of selling more books online and we did that,” Sohag said.
Secondly, the complications regarding the payment system and delivery logistics needed to be resolved right away.
At the time, the Rokomari site had a pay-first system. Customers needed to pay through debit/credit cards or mobile financial services before ordering a product, which led to the trust issues buyers were facing.
So, Sohag said, the Rokomari team boldly decided to introduce the cash-on-delivery (COD) payment system. “Sundarban Courier Service was our logistics partner and luckily, they accommodated our idea. They also helped us a lot by building a model with our COD feature.
“It would have been very difficult if Sundarban had rejected our idea. We are grateful because they didn’t and we were all set to provide better services to our customers,” he said.
The cash-on-delivery idea was completely successful as people started showing more enthusiasm for buying books online from Rokomari which boosted the company’s popularity.
“An easy book delivery system, a highly active sales team and a website that works like a true search engine for books — all these matters only improved the customers’ experience with Rokomari,” he said.
Thirdly, however, it’s not easy for an e-commerce platform to become one of the most popular category-based websites in a country. To achieve that, the site needed to provide a glitch-free smooth user experience and it was quite hard for the small Rokomari team at the beginning.
The team members also made small investments in the company. With that, they hired some people for fieldwork and public relations. They usually went to the publishers and book fairs and markets to collect user data in real-time, Sohag said.
He said cold calling has never been a popular medium in Bangladesh. But Rokomari used it to spread their name and offers. They still use SMS and send notifications on campaigns and offers to users on various occasions.
They also sent bulk emails at the beginning to boost their customer base. Soon, they started sending promotional emails to the customers with info on campaigns and offers.
Branding
Talking to The Business Post, Sohag said that branding played a big part in Rokomari’s lasting success and helped it make an impact on society.
“We were relentless from day one. Tushar, a team member who now lives in Libya, used to spend his entire day in Banglabazar wearing a Rokomari t-shirt. He was so persistent that people in the Banglabazar area nicknamed him Rokomari,” Sohag reminisced with a grin.
He said that social media platforms were most important for quick branding. “We shared our commitments and user experiences to attract more booklovers and it worked.”
He stressed that they rarely opt for television commercials. Instead, they have utilised social media for their branding and marketing. Since the beginning, Rokomari has engaged its social media followers through many events like quiz shows, review competitions, story writings, surveys, and photography fest and received great responses.
“Rokomari is an internet marketplace. We neither promote nor hold any product back deliberately through artificial means, like arbitrary moderation. We have a list of bestselling books that are created based on the sales analytics of the platform,” he said.
Authors can use the authors’ panel to know the status of their books. Rokomari also hosts online and offline events in collaboration with the authors to stay on top of matters.
Sohag said, “The crucial point here is that outbound strategies have always played a minor part in Rokomari’s branding.”
For writers, Rokomari carries on the book-launching culture which has become more accessible and popular amongst all parties. Any writer can arrange a digital book launch event through the e-commerce bookshop.
Rokomari right now
“The sell we had made during our first month in the business back in 2012 can now easily be beaten by the number we make now between 10am and 11am on any given day,” Sohag said with a smile.
Most of the books available in Rokomari are in Bangla and English. They also have a small number of books in other languages.
Currently, Rokomari has more than 2,00,000 books in its inventory and 150 employees who work diligently to have roughly 1,500-2,000 ordered books delivered to hundreds of customers every day. Of the 5,000 e-books in Rokomari’s collection, 300 are also free for people to read.
“Booklovers can easily choose and buy the books they like or need from our vast collection. Rokomari’s delivery service is also available for customers’ convenience,” Sohag said.
He said that their channel is growing quickly now and the venture is expanding to the newest horizons as they have started selling products other than books.
Relevant DVDs, video tutorials, sporting goods, OnnoRokom Science Boxes, calculators, watches, pen drives, computer accessories, and stationery and gift items are now available on the Rokomari site, opening a new window of opportunity.
Going global
Sohag said that Rokomari has several unique selling points. “Our vast collection has books by both local and international writers. Over the last 10 years, we have imported foreign books too based on customers’ demand.
“At the same time, Rokomari is focused on the international markets as well. Readers from other countries can also order books from our site. We now deliver books to over 30 countries across the globe,” he said.
“We have already worked on e-books and are now working on selling second-hand books. But, we still need to develop a viable model for penetrating the offline market as we are affiliated with many bookstores that order books from us,” he said.
“Moreover, we are selling other related products to complement the books,” he added.
However, Rokomari is yet to penetrate the academic book market because the authorities are yet to approve their sale online, Sohag said.
“Our neighbouring country India has given businesses that permission. If we can get that from our government, it will make a bigger impact,” he added.
“However, our major challenge is to sustain the niche market we have created and strongly hold on to it. To do that, we believe we will have to focus on developing unique selling propositions and identify the areas we need to compete in,” said the Rokomari boss.
“And by doing that, we will have to create a platform that will set our brand apart from the others,” said Sohag with his eyes on the future.
