The question of trust in e-commerce platforms

The recent fiasco centering around Evaly and some other e-commerce sites has engendered fresh controversies regarding the credibility of the ways these entities run their operations and do business. Especially, there has been a serious question of trust among the customers and consumers after a particular e-commerce site failed to deliver products offered at giveaway prices to the customers. Since then, many things have happened and new developments have surfaced, ranging from the detention of the CEO of Evaly to revelation of more staggering facts related to e-commerce business. But, one thing has probably skipped our radar that it is the customers/consumers who have been left in the lurch and at the end of the day, it is them who will turn away from online marketplaces owing to a serious dearth of trust.

Just before these recent spate of incidents, our e-commerce industry was faring well. According to industry players, the e-commerce industry in Bangladesh has been registering steady growth in the last few years and the rate is assumed to be 25.6%. According to another piece of information revealed by Statista, a German company specializing in market and consumer data, aggregate value of the e-commerce market in Bangladesh will experience an accretion and reach USD 2,077 million this year whereas the market size will be USD 3,077 million by 2023. This is amazing, isn’t it?

Meanwhile, owing to the unprecedented situation resulted in by the onslaught of coronavirus, many things have changed and businesses around the world have been brought down to its knees. Against the tide, e-commerce platforms in our country was doing great riding out the uncertainties, mainly because of changed consumer behavior and a tendency to avoid going out for buying daily essentials. Bangladesh Bank data revealed that, the transaction amount recorded through e-commerce sites was Tk 491.4 crore in June 2020, wherein the amount rose to Tk 640.4 crores in July 2020.

At a time when the local e-commerce scene was doing so good and taking great strides, suddenly a controversy erupted like a volcano and the credibility that was hard earned by dint of persistent hard work is gone. People are now confused about e-commerce platforms and many are refraining from online marketplaces in fear of being deceived. The law will definitely take its own course and the perpetrators might be brought to book as well. But, one thing we are not talking about is the fact that the customers are also to be held responsible for whatever happened with them to some extent. The lost trust in e-commerce platforms is also a by-product of the excessively greedy attitude of the consumers.

We often forget too much greed only leads to troubles in life. This is what happened with these customers. When some errant e-commerce sites were actually running Ponzi scheme, the customers could not sense it or they were not willing to do so. Rather they jumped on the bandwagon in hope of a high return or they wanted to buy things at abnormally low prices, which is actually not realistic. This kind of greed has invited dangers for us before, still we are not learning from our past mistakes. The same kind of thing happened a few years back when so many people invested money in the MLM (Multi-level marketing) business that sprouted like mushrooms everywhere, especially in the capital. What happened finally? People were deceived and many lost their hard-earned money. Many customers got trapped in the similar kind of trouble when they plowed their savings back into some controversial e-commerce platforms who were pulling wool over their eyes by enticing them into making quick money. Moreover, the customers fail to recognize the reality that it’s not actually possible for any business to offer products at half the original price. But, some sites did it and people rushed for these offers.

Customers need to remember that anything that deviates from what’s normal is not a good thing. As online customers, they have every right to look for the best deals and offers. And that’s why, whole new ideas like webrooming and showrooming are enjoying wide currency in this modern age. But, it is also true that they should look for reasonable offers and deals. Striking a balance between your necessity and greed is important if you don’t want to be cheated by online marketplaces and tricky policies they adopt to pull off this. Meanwhile, e-commerce platforms should stop resorting to different stratagems to lure more people into buying things from a particular marketplace. If a healthy competitive ecosystem is being developed, it will benefit all the stakeholders including the customers.

It is not possible to change what has already happened, but we should be wary of things that are too ostentatious and deceiving. In the meantime, the concerned regulatory authorities need to step up their efforts. This is big question that how have these platforms been running such Ponzi scheme under the very nose of the ministry and other entities that have been formed to protect the rights of the consumers?

To conclude, our e-commerce industry is at a crossroads where they need to take the right turn to sustain the growth momentum. As opined by industry players in different seminars and roundtable discussions, Bangladesh’s e-commerce sector is poised to generate more than USD $5 billion in Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) in future and at least 25% of the total population will lean towards online marketplaces to meet up their necessities in the next five years. When statistics leave so much room for hope, the only challenge for the sector, I think, is gaining the lost trust of the customers/consumers back. And this is that local e-commerce platforms should concentrate on for the time being to turn the corner and come roaring back.

The writer is a freelance contributor