e-commerce entrepreneurs fear loss of thousands of crores taka
The demand to open Facebook becomes stronger
Statistics show that the current business investment in Facebook in Bangladesh is Tk 362 crore. Most of the Facebook Commerce merchants are young. 50% of total entrepreneurs are women. The number of Facebook pages related to Facebook Commerce is 3 lakh and above. Entrepreneurs have a monthly income of 10 thousand to 1 lakh taka and above. 72% of the beneficiaries are men.
In recent years, internet and social media-based businesses have increased more than e-commerce in the country. These entrepreneurs have also been promoted by the government. In total, only women entrepreneurs are losing Tk 60 crores of market every day. The sector concerned is estimating that the total loss of e-commerce will exceed hundreds of crores of taka. But the government is in a tough position to bring Facebook and other social media under accountability. In such a situation, women entrepreneurs' organization WE has extended a hand especially for women entrepreneurs. Members of the organization are being added to WE Hatbazar and Daraz platforms as alternative platforms.
When asked about this, e-CAB senior vice president Sahab Uddin Shipon said that there are about 5 lakh e-commerce entrepreneurs in the country including Facebook. 90 percent of them are small entrepreneurs. They get more business from Facebook. And there are about 17 thousand entrepreneurs who have their own websites. All in all, it is becoming difficult for them to conduct business without Facebook even if they have internet connection. But hopefully they have at least managed to stop the ads running on social media as they got internet connection. This reduced their losses to some extent.
He said that e-commerce entrepreneurs are not getting orders because mobile internet and Facebook are not open. Basically, 85% of orders come through both these mediums. Entrepreneurs in this sector have already suffered due to the internet shutdown and the overall ongoing situation in the country. At present, the partial curfew has restricted the delivery of daily commodities, medicine and food especially in the evening and at night. As a result, the country is facing a loss of thousands of crores of business through 7-8 lakh entrepreneurs of the country who are directly and indirectly connected and conducting business online.
If you want to know the explanation of this loss, during the internet shutdown, the delivery of 8 lakh orders per day was stopped, which is more than 100 crore taka per day. At present, data from the field shows that normal transactions are only more than 5% during the limited internet. This sector involves 5 lakh entrepreneurs and another 1.5 lakh workers, suppliers and service providers. Including independent workers, this number is about 2 million. Everyone is in critical condition at this time. In the last 10 days, the loss in this sector is more than 1400 crore taka. A large part of these are f-commerce entrepreneurs, besides there are marketplaces, online shops, food delivery. E-commerce based logistics service providers have also suffered losses. There are companies providing intangible goods and services such as e-tourism, e-tickets, e-learning, e-health and content services.
However, in order to reduce the losses in the emerging situation, besides social media, WE 'Hatbazar' and e-commerce platform 'Daraz' have taken special steps for micro entrepreneurs. In this regard, e-CAB General Secretary and Women and E-Commerce Trust (WE) President Nasima Akhter Nisha said that the minimum basket value of women entrepreneurs of the country is Tk 1500. There are currently four lakh women entrepreneurs in the country. These entrepreneurs are almost hundred percent dependent on Facebook. As such, our loss in the situation arising through women entrepreneurs alone is more than 60 crore taka. But to cut this dependency we have made a platform called WE Hatbazar with the help of World Bank. First, a pilot project was undertaken with 100 entrepreneurs. However, yesterday, as an alternative to F-Commerce, I built a community in Hatbazar to accommodate everyone. But since now we have to do one-to-one communication with them, it takes a little time. Also, some of them are being activated on Daraz as an alternative platform.
Regarding the matter, the Chief Operating Officer of Daraz Bangladesh Khandkar Tasfin Alam promised to inform the matter officially within two days. In response to a question, he said that online shopping mainly depends on mobile internet. 85 percent of our sellers are small entrepreneurs. The founders of Facebook were at one time or another in Daraz. They are active again. Creating special opportunities for Facebook sellers. Most of our trading is done on the app. But the seller-delivery ecosystem requires dynamic mobile internet. Moreover, due to the curfew, we are not able to conduct much business outside Dhaka. So, if the situation is normal, the order will also be normal. We are struggling now. I am unable to process the order due to slow internet.
Meanwhile, in the current situation of the country, after being closed for a few days, the internet has resumed in a limited form, but the social media has not yet been started till the time of writing this report. The government has not said anything clearly about when it will be available. As a result, half a million f-commerce entrepreneurs are in trouble. So, the demand to open Facebook is getting stronger every day.
