E-Commerce in Pakistan - Is It At The Verge of Rise?
Published on: Aug 31, 2019
Consumer behaviours are influenced by different factors such as culture, social class, relation, family, salary level and salary independency, age, gender etc. On-line shopping is a recent phenomenon in the field of E-Business. Most of the companies are selling their products/services on-line through online portals. Over the last few years, the e-commerce industry has seen a major upsurge in Pakistan. Peoples’ access to the internet is expanding day by day with the introduction of online sales and offers; therefore, it is giving rise to the consumer base in Pakistan. Now, a business is incomplete without e-commerce either it is on small scale or a big one. Many businessmen and entrepreneurs have seen a drastic growth in sales and profitability just by introducing e-commerce to their businesses.
Apart from the businesses themselves, there are many of the e-commerce retailers which provide a platform to both the consumers and businesses. They offer a different and multi-categories of products or services from many of the businesses to the consumers. They offer almost everything from gadgets to groceries and are followed by thousands of niche vendors and businesses. The examples include daraz.pk (for electronics and apparels), FoodPanda (for food deliveries), Careem and Uber (for passenger rides), Rozee.pk (for recruitment and job hunting), PakWheels (for buying and selling of automobiles), Export Leftovers (for clothing) and Zameen.com (for real estate matters).
Businesses involved in provision of technology services are taking e-commerce a great opportunity and have achieved a smashing success
There are millions of potential buyers who surf and shop at online stores every month ranging from clothing outlets to electronic equipment stores. They use the websites to buy goods or visit the online market places such as olx, daraz.pk. According to many of the online surveys, most of the people especially in the big cities are more comfortable with online shopping which is convenient and time saving as well instead of going physically to the outlets. This trend is escalating and hence giving more space to online markets to pop in. Thousands of Pakistanis entrepreneurs are invest a little in doing an online business to earn huge profits and create a value to their businesses by widening their boundaries.
Businesses involved in provision of technology services are taking e-commerce a great opportunity and have achieved a smashing success. According to state bank of Pakistan reports the number of registered e-commerce merchants is increasing with the passage of time. This increase gives an opportunity to financial growth to the developers of e-commerce. Pakistan is no doubt has a wonderful workforce and intelligent brains which will prove their mettle in the world. The youngsters are working hard to win the world with their dedication and hard work.
Despite of the privilege of E-Commerce, Pakistan has also faced a lot of hardships against significant progress in facing the challenge of globalization and simultaneously, embracing e-commerce in due course. As a result, it is intruding in all the economic sectors of Pakistan, like Banks, Airlines, Medical, Engineering, Insurance, Telecommunication, Manufacturing (products), Trading and Retailing, etc. However, some inconveniences are causing hurdle in its privilege, like threats of fraud, threats of quality assurance, late delivery, tax burden, bulk shipment charges, expensiveness, and other constraints, etc. Such Technological and infrastructural constraints to e-commerce can be overcome if all existing laws and regulations and as well as piracy laws are strictly implemented. Another challenge being faced by E-Commerce in Pakistan is that Pakistan is still largely a cash-based, informal economy. The majority of transactions are conducted in cash, except for those that are very large and require a bank draft or pay order. According to exports.gov up to 60 percent of the economy is informal, with the majority of local companies, particularly SMEs, undocumented and outside the tax net. But in all, the tendency of positive attitude toward scope of e-commerce is greater, and has paramount importance.
Many of the institutions are conducting trainings on e-commerce to build up the skills of youngsters and entrepreneurs which would help them to boost their profit returns. Digiskills.pk is one of the initiatives of the government of Pakistan which is offering courses to enable trainees to learn and understand the basics of E-Commerce, which includes the skills of setting-up and running online store from End-to-End including selecting niche market of products, domain hosting, selection of open-source E-Business software, optimizing the online store using Search Engine Optimization (SEO) techniques and many other chapters of E-Commerce. If you want to start your E-Commerce business online then start your training free by signing up at www.digiskills.pk.