Multinational companies in Bangladesh are in a scramble to capture market share of emerging e-commerce business of different classified products.
The companies are investing millions of dollars, mainly in the advertisement sector, to explore the untapped market of the country of 160 million people, industry insiders said.
They said the sector would emerge as one of the big businesses by next few years.
The e-commerce sites, which are Norway-based Cellbazaar.com, Sweden-based Bikroy.com and US- based Olx.com are vying to make their individual positions strong in the Bangladesh market as online platform for classified products.
In the market, sellers could post ads of their products free of cost and buyers could buy the same products by dealing directly with the providers. But the e-commerce sites do not play any role in financial transaction between sellers and buyers.
The online market is full with a wide range of old and a few new products including electronic goods, cars, vehicles, property, personal items, home appliances, pets and animals which give the buyers the best option to choose products at affordable prices.
Head of Bikroy.com Martin Malmstrom said the country has good prospects for classified businesses. It will boom gradually in line with increasing access to information of people, thanks to the hi-speed internet service.
"We are not thinking about return from the business. Rather our full concentration is to create potential market of the classified products and achieve reliability from the customers," the high official of the e-commerce site informed the FE on the sideline of a meeting recently.
Meanwhile, the company has started imposing charge of Tk 99 against priority posting of each product.
Mr Malmstrom said, "We charge a small amount to keep the product on the front page of the site for seven days. It is easy to view the product which increases the possibility of quick sale".
Marketing Manager at the company Eshita Sharmin said Bikroy.com's objective is to provide a credible platform that enables online buyers and sellers to interact.
While talking about return, she said when buy-and-sell platform will get popularity in the market, revenue will come mainly from advertisements.
Co-founder and CEO at OLX Alec Oxenford said through an email response, the company`s global operational experience in hundreds of countries will give its advantage to develop consumer-to-consumer (C2C) market in the country.
"We are very optimistic about the OLX's growth in Bangladesh. The country has an emerging but yet an immature market. The burgeoning middle class, growing youth population with a median age of 23, and a flourishing mobile eco-system are key growth drivers for Bangladesh market," said Mr Oxenford.
Talking about the fraud issue, the high official of the company said, "At OLX, we work hard to keep the website safe for its users. We have a set of rules and regulations on our website which the users must adhere to while posting ads. If an ad is found to be unauthentic or offensive, we take it down right away. We also listen to our users and promptly review ads that they mark as spam."
According to the Alexa ranking, Bikroy.com is much ahead of two other rivals in the Bangladesh market as 18th site while cellbazaar.com`s position is 42 and OLX.com 58.
Norwegian company Cellbazaar.com started its first business in the country in 2007 and then Swedish company Bikroy.com launched its service in June 2012. Last year, American company Olx.com joined the race for e-commerce business.
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