Eid shoppers now prefer to do shopping online before this Eid-ul-Fitr due to nagging traffic jam on streets, heavy crowd at shopping malls and boom in access to Internet.
Apart from online marketers, famous local brands are also offering Eid products online through their Internet windows.
A famous local brand says 15 per cent of their total sales are made online during Eid-ul-Fitr.
"Our online sales during last Eid-ul-Fitr were around 10 per cent of total sales, but this year we expect that it will increase to at least 15 per cent," Humayun Kabir, marketing executive of Kay Kraft, told the FE.
It is surprising that they get many orders from district level and rural areas this year, he said.
Nihad Sarwar a banker who bought two pieces of shirts from ajkerdeal.com, one of the popular online shopping centres, expressed satisfaction with online shopping. Almost all leading local brands and local outlets of international brands of clothes, shoes, jewellery and cosmetics have opened their online shopping wings for buying and selling of their products.
Hundreds of such websites and pages as well as online marketplaces on social media like Facebook were set up by micro and individual entrepreneurs. Major online shopping centres include amarponyo.com, amardeshehop.com, ekhanei.com, biponee.com, ajkerdeal.com, kaymu.com.bd, Bangladeshbrands.com, karigor.com, bikroy.com and rupkathajamdani.com.
Sources said online shops are selling varieties of items including apparels, footwear, electronics items, mobile phones and many others every day.
The items are being put on display on the webpage of the online shops where customers can place orders for products chosen by them.
Nihad Sarwar said one can buy a variety of products from one website.
"You just place order and get your desired products. Pay after delivery. You can return if you don't like .. it is easier and simpler."
"You have to spend a lot of time if you visit many showrooms for Eid shopping to look for a variety of products," he said.
Md. Asif Haque, IT in- charge of CATS EYE, a prominent local brand, said they receive orders online if anybody is interested and deliver the products, but they are yet to launch full-fledged online shopping service.
"We have been preparing ourselves to initiate full-fledged online shopping service by next month," he said.
According to the country's largest online payment gateway service SSLCOMMERZ, around 170 companies are getting service from them.
The companies are selling almost everything including groceries, foods, clothes, home appliances, electronics, jewelleries, books, shoes etc.
There are also some 10 online payment service companies and most of the banks are offering online payment service for online shopping.
Mahbub-ur Rashid Khan, manager of SSLCOMMERZ, said bank and other charges are still very lower than that of costs of time and transports in our traffic-mismanaged city.
"The courier service cost is Tk 30-40 while 2 per cent card service and 2 per cent bank service if it is mobile or online banking. So, the cost is not much higher at all rather less than transport cost," he said.
According to the Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services (BASIS), online sales amount to nearly Tk 200 million per year in the country.
Bangladesh Telecommunication Company Ltd says at present, the country has about 40 million Internet users. In Bangladesh, local shoppers pay either in cash or through debit or credit cards or bKash service and foreign shoppers make payment through paypal or payza.
Mahbub-ur Rashid Khan said a new trend in making payments through bKash and other online or mobile banking services is making online shopping easier.
bKash Limited offers up to 20 per cent cash-back to its customers ahead of Eid if they pay through bKash at 381 outlets of the country's leading brands in fashion, food and e-commerce. The outlets are located in Dhaka, Chittagong and Khulna.   bdsmile@gmail.com
Eid shoppers go online
Ismail Hossain | Published: July 14, 2015 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2024 06:01:00
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