Cashing in on online dividend

As the figures speak for themselves, the changing dynamics of the mobile telephony and related technology bears out some strong positive developments in Bangladesh. Thus a recent study the USAID estimated the total value of monthly transactions in Bangladesh, made through cell phones, at $1.42 billion or Tk 111.04 billion in February. This gives a very impressive figure. It also serves as a pointer to the online dividend that is being reaped by the country's millions in villages through Union Information Service Centres. In the same fashion, online trading in the country has, of late, become a craze among certain section of youngsters. This was reported in the FE early this week. They order items of their choice and get those at their doorsteps. Such a growth in online shopping is attributed to easy access to the Internet and its increasing number of users. Products such as food items, apparels, cosmetics, jewellery, accessories, electronic products, shoes and home appliances are thus being offered online. Could anyone imagine such developments even a few years back in this country?
Such developments have mostly taken place because of a significant rise in use of the Internet in Bangladesh. Active Internet subscribers reached the level of 45.67 million until April 2015 while the number of mobile Internet users stood at 44.22 million. Electronic commerce -- e-Commerce in short -- allows one to shop virtually everything online. An online portal offers a wide range of products --from kitchen items to flats of different sizes and at different locations. Since private Internet Service Providers (ISP) started promoting Internet as business, the infrastructural improvement in the segment of telecoms has helped spread the Internet to get organised around the country. Its expansion has made more chances of e-Commerce getting a strong foothold.
But then e-Commerce in Bangladesh is yet to grow as fast as it has already done in neighbouring countries. While it is less than 10 per cent in the country a year, it is 30 per cent in Pakistan and 28 per cent in India. Reasons are not far to seek. Such a slow progress in Bangladesh is largely due to security issue and data theft, connective coverage and speed, price of bandwidths, lack of education, fragile economy, power shortage, unavailable Internet facility, improper standardisation of Bengali software, shortage of skilled human resource and, most importantly, absence of proper copyright laws. It is time for the Bangladesh Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (BTRC) as much as the stakeholders to make collaborative efforts for devising out cheap, safe and secure online marketing facilities or arrangements. At the top of all these is credibility of quality and designs of products customers ask for. However, the most critical hurdle to growth lies in areas of trust with online payment mechanisms. And trust needs time to build.
An e-Commerce transaction requires actual transaction -- where funds are transferred from the buyer to the seller -- to take place electronically. Most of the transactions that are categorised as e-Commerce in Bangladesh, involve cash-on-delivery. Strictly speaking, this cannot be considered an electronic transaction even if other parts in the value chain, such as product listing or marketing, are done electronically. Growth of real e-commerce will need some more years in order to consolidate the new kind of virtual shopping that will encompass areas like electronic transfer of money for payment of bills, delivery of goods without entailing any extra charge etc. Popularisation of the concept of e-Commerce is critically important for such purposes.