A Facebook group named WE (Women and E-commerce Forum) has emerged as one of the largest display and promotional platforms for local products.
Sources said the products are mostly manufactured by female entrepreneurs amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
The e-commerce group in a span of one year has succeeded in luring an estimated 0.85-million digitally active members, they added.
Products like home-made food, raw fish, ready-to-cook fish, vegetable, fruit, handloom dress, traditional khadi, handmade ornaments and beauty products are the staple items, people engaged with the group said.
The unique aspect of the group is that members write or make posts about hundreds of their products.
It helps entrepreneurs or businesses develop their own brands with displaying and explaining different aspects of their local products, they added.
Entrepreneur Nasima Akter Nisha initiated the Facebook-based WE group on October 25, 2010.
More than 30 moderators are currently monitoring and maintaining online posts and comments with some rules.
Talking to the FE, WE president Ms Nisha said WE is not actually a selling platform or marketplace. "Our main goal is to promote desi (local) products of mostly women entrepreneurs."
She, however, said group members are buying and selling products among themselves every day.
An estimated Tk 10-30 million transactions take place per month through this platform, she noted.
When asked, Ms Nisha said cross-border or formal export is yet to take place because almost all the entrepreneurs are still at micro level in size.
They are still to do export formalities and procedures.
But many expatriates mostly living in the USA, the UK and the Middle East ask their families in Bangladesh knowing about the products in the group, Ms Nisha said.
WE adviser Razib Ahmed said during the Covid-19 period, the group posted huge growth as it works only with desi products.
There was no Facebook group that worked on theme only. So, people from all walks of life and all parts of the country joined the group, he added.
"Moreover, women entrepreneurs here hardly get family support. The WE group encourages such people with sharing experiences and other related knowledge."
Mr Ahmed, also former president of E-commerce Association of Bangladesh, said WE charges nothing for giving posts or there is no commission when an entrepreneur makes a sale.
"WE is the largest archive of desi products on Internet. Right now, there are more than 1.3-million posts in this group," he disclosed.
Mr Ahmed claimed that the WE group is the best learning platform about Bangladeshi products as well as the basics of e-commerce.
Mokta Akter, an entrepreneurs who deals with khadi fabrics from Cumilla, has sold fabrics worth Tk 1.0 million in the past six months.
Talking to the FE, she said most of her customers are small entrepreneurs who have clothing business. They buy Khadi fabric as raw materials.
As people stayed at home during the coronavirus lockdown, online sales witnessed a rise, Ms Akter noted.
Zarin Hannan, owner of 'Machher Hat Bazar' page said she supplied fresh hilsa from Chandpur and sold hilsa and other fish worth Tk 2.13 million through the group since mid-June.
"WE group clients buy fish from me and also recommend others about my products," she told the FE on Tuesday.
"The group not only gives me an online platform to brand fish without investment, but also educates about e-commerce through training and group adda."
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