To support the seller community across the country, Paperfly, in partnership with e-Commerce Association of Bangladesh (e-CAB) and a2i, ICT Division, launched Seller One program, a service to empower the semi-urban or rural producers to sell their products directly to the customers online across the whole country.
The capital centric economy of our country doesn’t exactly facilitate the trade and commerce of outside Dhaka localities at its full potential. Availability of transportation, skilled resources and quick and wider range financial services in other districts never matches Dhaka’s. However, entrepreneurship and creativity of people cannot be bound by any economic heatmap. To facilitate any sized businesses located out of Dhaka in the arena of e-commerce, Paperfly introduces Seller One with which anybody across the country can be an online merchant today.
Online presence is not the end of e-commerce story. Rather, it is just the starting point. Without full-fledged logistics support, knowledge on how to do online business using Facebook and other online platforms and financial support/bank loans the budding e-commerce industry of the country cannot survive. Now is the right time to put our focus on the seller community that we have around the country and make them e-commerce ready to impact the growth of e-commerce in Bangladesh. To support this timely movement, Paperfly along with e-Commerce Association of Bangladesh (e-CAB) launches Seller One to extend merchants’ product pick-up service to any district beyond the city of Dhaka and thus, deliver to any address across the country through Paperfly’s own points-of-presence across all 64 districts. Seller One will address the comprehensive logistics requirement of this highly potential segment, that has so much to offer in the growth of our economy, drive digital entrepreneurship and will result better business growth and further local employment opportunity, in line with Digital Bangladesh Vision.
Seller One, as a country-wide logistic platform for e-commerce arena, is designated to increase the overall online seller base of the country in many fold and help the entire e-commerce ecosystem to grow, help the semi-urban/rural producers to sell their products directly to the customers, nationwide via online and as COVID aftereffects, since lot of stores are closed or on hold, these small businesses requires alternative sales channels to survive and grow – where Seller One wants to stand beside them as a friend in need.
Rahath Ahmed, Chief Marketing Officer, Paperfly said “We have always tried to come up with new service and solutions being in the forefront of the e-commerce focused logistics industry. And this Seller One Program is our latest endeavor which will help the ecommerce ecosystem to flourish by enabling an increase in numbers of the online seller base throughout the country. This service will allow and empower the semi-urban or rural producers to sell their products directly to the customers, nationwide via online.”
Ms. Shomi Kaiser, Honorable President, Ecommerce Association of Bangladesh (e-CAB) said, “e-CAB and Paperfly is launching this campaign in order to eradicate barriers for remote or outer Dhaka based sellers so that more merchants can start their online business from outside Dhaka. Of course, this will not happen overnight but with this campaign, we can proudly say that we are one step closer to achieving our goal.”
Rezwanul Huq Jami, Head of Ecommerce, A2i, ICT division and Mohammad Sahab Uddin, Vice President of e-CAB, Hosna Ferdous Sumi, Private Sector Specialist, IFC Bangladesh and Syed M Omar Tayub, SEVP & Head of MSME Banking of Prime Bank were also presented at the event as Special Guests. Bijon Islam, CEO, Lightcastle Partners presented the keynote at the event.
Due to COVID-19, a lot of stores are closed or on the verge of going out of business. These small businesses require alternative sales channels to survive and grow. E-commerce is getting popular day by day and more merchants are coming online to do their business. Currently more than 50 thousand online merchants are doing their business using Facebook platform and majority of these active F-commerce sellers are from Dhaka. Businesses online from outside Dhaka are yet to evolve due to absence of a professional e-commerce focused logistics partner, insufficient knowledge of running their businesses online and financial support. There is a huge scope of if these business owners are empowered by facilitating them through a channel to bring their business online. This will potentially drive digital entrepreneurship and will result in better business and economic growth and further local employment opportunities, all of which will perfectly contribute to the Digital Bangladesh Vision.
