How strong is the e-commerce growth potential in Bangladesh?
Payments
Asked by Question Bot08/Sep/20111 answer
1 Answer
F
Faisal Khan
Answered 08/Sep/2011
The potential for e-commerce exists in virtually every economy. However, when it comes to Bangladesh, it is a double-edge sword. The Internet figures for country are dismal, one of the lowest in Asia: http://www.internetworldstats.co... (with a huge population of 158 million, only 1.1% have access to the Internet).
Bangladesh has a fair-share of its problem when it comes to the Internet. Of all the friends and colleagues whom I personally know who live in Dhaka, they are always complaining about the erratic / non-reliability of the Internet and the low bandwidth that Bangladesh has. Localized online payment system do not exist (for Visa/MC purchases) and few online e-commerce based websites are present. Those that are online rely Cash-on-Delivery, or direct deposit or pay-by-cheque.
In my opinion, because of the physical and digital infrastructure that exists in Bangladesh, they would have more success in mobile-commerce vis-a-vis Internet based e-commerce. Bangladesh has an amazing setup for mobile related activities, (think Micro loans, etc.) and mobile carriers have the inroads to the population at large.
Any generic e-commerce based opportunities in Bangladesh would have to be innovative and would be restricted to a very small target market who would be able to tap into it and make use of that online convenience. The lack of major players makes the market 'open' (almost virgin in some aspects), but the low Internet penetration, absence of a truly integrated payment system and weak infrastructure, adds to the problems.
Bangladesh has a fair-share of its problem when it comes to the Internet. Of all the friends and colleagues whom I personally know who live in Dhaka, they are always complaining about the erratic / non-reliability of the Internet and the low bandwidth that Bangladesh has. Localized online payment system do not exist (for Visa/MC purchases) and few online e-commerce based websites are present. Those that are online rely Cash-on-Delivery, or direct deposit or pay-by-cheque.
In my opinion, because of the physical and digital infrastructure that exists in Bangladesh, they would have more success in mobile-commerce vis-a-vis Internet based e-commerce. Bangladesh has an amazing setup for mobile related activities, (think Micro loans, etc.) and mobile carriers have the inroads to the population at large.
Any generic e-commerce based opportunities in Bangladesh would have to be innovative and would be restricted to a very small target market who would be able to tap into it and make use of that online convenience. The lack of major players makes the market 'open' (almost virgin in some aspects), but the low Internet penetration, absence of a truly integrated payment system and weak infrastructure, adds to the problems.