E-commerce has boosted community economies by connecting local resources and increasing practice of technology beyond the cities, says a young entrepreneur.
“We should lead the e-commerce next level in terms of assisting new entrepreneurs, attracting more foreign direct investment in start-ups, and decentralising facilities to encourage rural entrepreneurs to participate equally,” Shahriar Hasan, founder and CEO of Paperfly, said in an exclusive interview with Daily Sun.
The initiative had reached the taste of e-commerce to village breaking the bracket of city bound services backed by increasing penetration of internet connectivity.
E-Commerce Association of Bangladesh (e-Cab) is going to hold executive council polls on this weekend. Young minds like Shahriar comes forward with a panel styled ‘Ogrogami’ to lead the e-commerce industry to next level with prudent policy advocacy
“We're working on connecting all the dots in the e-commerce sector by integrating Facebook-based companies under the e-Cab umbrella. When this occurs, the contributions of e-commerce will boost the current growth by a factor of ten. Now, everyone, from women to youths, is eager to start something new by creating a website or a social media presence (especially on Facebook). Hundreds of women run e-commerce venture from homes. And for a creator of a tech-enabled logistic enterprise to efficiently facilitate e-commerce, that's an incredible experience,” he said.
The tech entrepreneur has illustrious academic training created a strong base for his excellent and successful career.
After completing his education from renowned institutions like Saint Joseph High School and Notre Dame College in Dhaka, he received bachelor of business administration in marketing and management information system from North South University.
“The growing trend of e-commerce opens new windows for the tech-bound logistic venture that continued service to reach product to customers’ door steps amid pandemic situation. There are many examples that we run offices during holidays to meet market demand,” Shahriar added.
The Dhaka Chamber of Commerce and Industries (DCCI) estimated around 166 per cent growth in e-commerce business in 2020 and the market E-commerce thrives during corona size is expected to reach $3 billion by 2023.
“We has a dream to take a local e-commerce company to global arena where it can be called our very own Amazon. For happening this, the policy for cross border e-commerce is very important to bring the products from local to global,” Shahriar added.
Around 1600 registered companies are under the umbrella of e-Cab while the market size is around Tk 160 billion. Commerce Ministry and e-Cab are jointly working on the policy formulation to support digital businesses in cross-border transactions
The e-commerce founder believes that Bangladeshi youths have potential to develop world-class e-commerce ventures with proper nursing and mentoring in growth stage.
“Many youths talked to me that they are struggling for seed funding at early stage of running a e-commerce company. There should be a process to bring the prototype to a funnel to accelerate them until developing a minimum valuable product. As a founder of a tech-enabled start-up, I can assure support for new flock in e-commerce,” said Shahriar, an ever-smiling person to materialise his dreams and aspirations.
Shahriar said the e-commerce industry cannot thing without logistics venture that takes over the entire responsibility of picking up the product, performing quality check, doing the packaging, and delivering the goods to customers
Under leadership of Shahiar, the tech-logistic company secured a total of Tk 2.02 billion from Ecom Express, one of the leading tech-based e-commerce logistics solutions providers in India with latest round in April this year. This is a nod of acknowledgement to the sincere efforts and revolutionary ideas of the founders.
Jannatul Islam is with Daily Sun. He can be reached over email at [email protected]
