Digital economy and e-commerce have emerged as potential sectors for employment and income generation in Bangladesh. Needless to say, online business or e-commerce has expanded in Bangladesh at a tremendous rate. Moreover, a large young population, and high rate of internet penetration have made Bangladesh a potential market for global e-commerce giants in recent years.
It is encouraging to note that ecommerce platforms have seen a 25 percent year-on-year growth ahead of the Eid festival. According to the Ecommerce Association of Bangladesh (E-Cab), e-commerce companies earned around Tk 38 billion from March 15 to April.
Consumers today want more choices at their fingertips and everything faster at their doorsteps. People now order their favourite products online from home as large gatherings in shopping malls or restaurants pose serious health risks. There is no denying that economically marginalised and lower-middle-income families are still market-oriented, but the middle class or upper-middle class people now prefer shopping online.
Consumers today want more
choices at their fingertips and
everything faster at their doorsteps
Exploiting the opportunity of people's reliance on e-commerce, some unscrupulous entrepreneurs are cheating customers. Many customers with little knowledge of the process of online shopping end up being deceived. Consumers are mostly cheated on Facebook based online shopping pages where frauds post product pictures with tempting offers and take money in advance for the product.
Once they are successful in ripping off people, they close their page without providing the products customers paid for. Also they deceive customers by supplying substandard products.
Amid hundreds of thousands of online shopping platforms identifying the safe ones has become increasingly difficult. Unethical business practices in online shopping platforms have become rampant these days. Therefore, we need to integrate a regulatory body to prevent consumers from being cheated and given low quality or date-expired products.
Also, we need to create an enabling environment for the e-commerce to grow.
