F-commerce growing exponentially

With the growing use of smart phone and internet user base, online businesses, mostly e-commerce ones became poplar due to multiple convenient features mostly in city areas in the country.

Due to huge popularity of facebook in the country, even big e-commerce companies as a subsidiary now keep doing f-commerce, the latest version of online business, with the help of the social media platform.

Fahim Mashroor, CEO of one of the leading e-commerce company ajkerdeal.com said, “We are also running business on facebook in the same name as customers especially women love facebook for their online purchases as it gives better scope for one-to-one communication.”

He said they had 20,000 facebook merchants all across the country involved with their facebook venture and were receiving good response.

Small business entities locally dealing in traditional products like Hazari gur, Chandpur Hilsha, Comilla’s roshomalai etc are also taking up facebook as a marketplace for rise in their sales and the traders say they receive good number of orders from their facebook pages.

According to the global market research and information service organization - TAITRA, around 3 lakh facebook based business entities are carrying out businesses in the country reaching the market size of around Tk1,000 crores.

Data published in Meta’s advertising resources indicates that facebook had 44.70 million users in Bangladesh in early 2022, one of the top ten countries in terms of using the social media platforms.

Individuals, particularly women, take up facebook marketplace as an opportunity to start new businesses or grow their existing ones.

According to Women and e-commerce (WE), there are 4 lakh women entrepreneurs doing business with the help of multiple online platforms including facebook, of which 1,000 are listed with the organization.

Women own 70 percent of facebook-based businesses opened since the pandemic began and there has been an increase of more than 65 percent in Instagram businesses owned by women, according to Meta published on the occasion of International Women’s Day - 2022.

Aleya Akhter, owner of Aleya Fashion House based in Rangpur’s Mithapukur upazila, said she had been doing her business online by means of facebook, instagram and whatsapp.

Out of them, she receives more response from facebook platform as most of the people now, especially young females, use facebook.

“I share videos and photos of my new products on facebook. Customers come to take the items soon after we publish our products based on their choices and affordability,” she said.

She said they had no e-commerce sites to sell products as it was hard to reach people with that but they had to boost their posts though it costs them a bit but the return from sales compensated for that.

“I cannot imagine that few years ago businessmen did not have that scope to sell online,” she added.

Sharif Islam, owner of Hazari Gur facebook page dealing in traditional molasses based in Manikgang district said, people from all across the country know about the sweetmeats.

“We share images or videos of our gur on facebook, people call us on mobile number provided and give message seeking products details and send us money on Bkash or Rocket. We send their purchases.”

“We have some known customers, we reach products cash-on-delivery basis or people send money on Bkash or Rocket. We charge extra for delivery.”

Rahim Molla, proprietor of Ilisher Bari Chandpur (Home of Ilish) said they were not directly involved in fishing. They collect good fishes from fishermen and send them to local market as well as the capital city Dhaka.

“My father would do the business and now I do it. The change is now we get more customers, thanks to easy communication and marketing tools available at hand,” he said in a voice of self-satisfaction. They mention their mobile number, size of the fish, price and delivery costs on facebook page and people communicate them on messenger and make the purchase, he said.

However, the Business Promotion Council (BPC), an initiative of the Commerce Ministry, is piloting the ‘Digital Palli’ project to help marginalised and small entrepreneurs in villages promote and sell their products online. Under the project, 200 weavers in Manikganj’s Saturia upazila will be trained in e-commerce for three months initially.