With the advent of the pandemic, there has been a massive shift in shopping trends as people have gotten used to buying things online.
Additionally, the growing mobile financial services (MFS) industry has enabled consumers to buy products online even more easily, giving the e-commerce sector another boost.
And now, the market is expected to triple in size by 2023, according to a recent report by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) on the cottage, micro, small, and medium enterprise (CMSME) sector.
The local e-commerce sector is expected to be worth Tk26,000 crore or $3 billion next year from the current $1 billion or Tk8,500 crores, the report reads.
At present, there are about 2,500 e-commerce companies in the country and at least 50,000 business pages on Facebook.
"The huge potential of e-commerce in the country has been proven amid the coronavirus pandemic,” said Shahab Uddin, vice-president of the e-Commerce Association of Bangladesh (e-CAB).
“During Covid-19, 200,000 new jobs have been created in the sector. By 2024, another 300,000 jobs will have been created. Entrepreneurs are growing at the local level, and they are also growing on Facebook,” he further said, adding that product deliveries are now at least five times higher than when the pandemic first hit the country.
“This proves that the business potential of this sector has increased a lot,” Uddin said.
According to e-CAB, there has been a revolution in the e-commerce sector in Bangladesh, especially from July to September 2020, during which time, online sales increased by 70-80%.
MFS-led growth for small businesses
The ADB report also found that businesses that have increased their use of information technology, especially MFS, are on the track to recovery.
Businesses in the CMSME sector that rely on MFS saw 10% more recovery, while turnover increased by 60%.
The report also states that 31% of the companies surveyed have access to MFS, and the transaction for 74% of such companies have gone up.
Additionally, the survey found that during March-May 2020, only 42% of pre-pandemic sales volume was recovered — a rate which increased to 77% in January-March 2021.
But for organizations that have taken MFS services, recovery was about 10% more.
Both the production and the profit of these companies have also increased comparatively more than did not avail MFS services.
ADB’s report was based on a survey done in four phases carried out in March-May, June-September, October-December, and January-March 2021, that highlighted the use of information technology in the recovery process of businesses in the latest one conducted across 218 organizations.
The report recommends adopting a special policy in this regard in the future, saying that small factories or businesses should be able to use digital platforms to survive in the event of a big crisis such as that of the pandemic.
Besides, it also advised to conduct IT-based training in the CMSME sector.
