Naima Dilshad is busy. Until recently, besides working at a bank in Dhaka’s Eskaton area and taking care of her family, she spent much time in traffic running errands. These days, she does many of her errands online.
“I used to be totally exhausted. Now I feel relieved as I don’t have to run around for shopping,” Dilshad told Khabar South Asia. “In the midst of work I visit different online shopping websites and place orders for the stuff I need and they deliver the goods at my house.”
“The biggest advantage of online shopping is you get everything you want sitting at home and without compromising the quality of the product,” Fahim Masroor, former president of Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services (BASIS) said.
Tapping into the internet revenue stream
At present, only about one-fifth of the population – about 36 million of the nation’s 152 million residents – use the Internet daily, according to the Bangladesh Telecom Regulatory Commission (BTRC). So the growing popularity of online shopping underscores its huge potential in coming years.
And several companies are already cashing in.
Online shopping sites recently began posting free classified ads. Many people are using the sites to buy and sell apartments, used cars, furniture and other household goods.
“I had no idea that selling used items could be that easy and without spending any money through classified ads,” Ibrahim Sojun, owner of a fax-phone kiosk at Dhaka’s Bakusha market, told Khabar.
Facebook has also become an enterprising way to buy, sell or exchange personal items.
Farhana Antu built a thriving business through her fan page. Along with a friend, she began selling dresses to relatives and acquaintances.
“After opening our fan page on Facebook, many contacted us, which led to a phenomenal increase in our business,” Antu told Khabar.
Commerce through shutdowns
Some of the most popular shopping websites, like cellbazar.com, are foreign-owned. But more than a dozen other sites have come up including: Akhony.com, Bangladesh giftshop.com, and dhakasari.com.
Sojun sold a used cell phone within an hour of posting an advertisement on cellbazar.com.
“This is a phenomenon that is very welcome, especially in a country which sees frequent shutdowns because of political unrest,” Ujjal Mondol, who teaches at JahangirnagarUniversity near Dhaka, told Khabar.
– By Shahriar Sharif for Khabar South Asia in Dhaka.
