When Bangladesh Stepping into Arena of E-Commerce

Despite tons of hurdles in the way of overall growth of country, Bangladesh is encompassing wider range of technologies and e-commerce growth is its evidence. Bangladesh is stepping into arena of e-commerce slowly, but surely and steadily. It is the e-commerce performance for B2C category, which seems much promising and needs focus. Let’s check what it actually needs.

Bangladesh is considered as an under privilege country with high density population, high rate of illiteracy, high poverty rate, and scanty infrastructure to adopt advance technologies that most of the countries in the world enjoy. Despite such hindrance, today country has 7 million Internet users with more than 200 ISP and 100 million mobile Internet users. Nearly one million Internet users enjoy Internet and mobile banking services subscriptions and contributing nearly 100 core transactions each month.

Factors Favoring Online Shopping Trends
This big volume of Internet users have boosted the growth of e-commerce in unprecedented volume and more than 2500 online shops or say e-storefronts are operating in Bangladesh. Each prosperous brick-and-mortar store is enjoying an online identity offering online shopping or e-transaction facilities for online shoppers. No doubt, the growth of Internet is not one-day or one-year miracle, but the consistent efforts of government, international trade and other organization, contribution of world banks and finance institutions, and finally, contribution of Bangladeshi entrepreneurs residing outside the country.

Initiatives Made to Sustain Online Shopping Growth
Government had made target of “Digital Bangladesh in 2012” and provided all sorts of legal, financial, and infrastructural support to boost the online shopping infrastructure and intentions among the citizens through various nodal agencies. Banks in Bangladesh have formed a common platform to ease the lives of Internet shoppers and money transactions needy Bangladeshis within and outside the country. Recent collaboration of banks with Payza Bangladesh like payment gateway service providers are giving solid evidences of the good intentions of the country and its people to keep pace with time and modernize the society by-and-large.

If we look at the recent development, we can realize that Bangladesh is stepping into arena of e-commerce growth with solid infrastructure.

• Licenses issued to the maximum WiMAX services
• Licenses issued to the VoIP operators by BRTC
• Some additional IIG licenses issued by BRTC
• Permission for upgrade network to TD-LTE for Banglalion and Augere 

Besides these, recent onslaught of mobility have solved many problems indirectly like affordability of computing devices and spreading wired network because mobile devices are cheaper alternative against standalone desktops or laptops with limited mobility. Advent of 3G/4G technologies has solved connectivity issues at greater extents. Introduction of Payza like payment gateway provider in Bangladesh have eliminated the needs of bureaucrats in money transactions or remittance for Bangladeshis sending or receiving money from and to the country.

Nature of Online Shops in Bangladesh
Besides government services, ticket bookings for rail, air, or land transports are optimum usage of e-commerce or e-transactions. Various industries including garments, hospitality, travels, job market, outsourcing, groceries, retails, and many essential commodity businesses are witnessing a big surge through their online shopping opportunity services. In due course, following e-commerce or say online shopping websites are witnessing high revenue turn over.

•  Bikroy
•  Akhoni
•  Cellbazaar
•  ClickBD
•  BDjobs
•  Rokomari
•  And many others 

If we closely examine, majority of online shopping services were C2C nature in recent past, but now B2C types of online shopping is becoming trendy. Reasons are obvious as payment system for online shoppers is becoming more secure and safe against other delivery and collection methods in past traditions. Today any citizen can use her bank account to topple money in Payza Bangladesh account and easily as well as quickly make online payments with the cheapest rates in the world.

Thus, Bangladesh is becoming a paradise for online shoppers gradually and heading towards a bright as well as promising future.

E-Payment System and Internet Shopping in Bangladesh

Influence of electronic payment system over the Internet shopping in Bangladesh is profound and need revisits of policies as well as strategies employed. Therefore, some live debate on this is must and discussion on the pros and cons of e-payment system may bring fruitful solutions with the pace of time.

In traditional banking system, we had everything on paper so we used to rely heavily on the human resources to accomplish tasks of entries, clearing, deposits, document transfer, etc. on time and with accuracy. Fortunately, digitalization and use of Internet as well as intranet network had changed that dismal scenario rapidly in the western developed countries before decades.

Towards Digital Bangladesh
However, in Bangladesh like backward economy, these all and sudden changes were not possible so Bangladeshis have to wait for long to enjoy such advance privileges in comparison to their western counterparts. Fortunately, government of Bangladesh has initiated many vital moves in this direction and given an agenda to make economy and other sectors digital through “Digital Bangladesh” slogan.

Many forward thinkers and people with futuristic visions including entrepreneurs residing within country or in foreign lands have created highly conductive environment and made useful efforts to boost the process of digitalization through invading Internet and telecommunication network or facilities in early days. Later on mobiles became buzzword and sudden proliferation of mobile users taken place.

E-Payment Scenario
Along with other infrastructural facilities in the country, financial system also had taken many vital initiations. Among them banking sector and payment gateways were leaders to revolutionize the scenario of e-commerce by-and-large. Today, majority of money transactions are taking place through electronic cards or Internet across the country. Therefore, it is vital to understand the electronic payment system in Bangladesh before doing any business in the country or investing money.

Challenges on the Road
Yes, things are not always gloomy, as they seem because there are multiple challenges on the road of progress, which people of Bangladesh and other stakeholders of economy have to face, such as:

• Increased rate of cyber crime in this social and educational backward country
• Money laundering like activities due to strict money regulations and rules of land
• Perception of people are not always positive due to backwardness and lack of awareness
• Initial high cost for access because e-card payment as well as Internet payment systems need investment in infrastructure for government as well as financial system and in hardware for end-users.
• Confidence and security of transaction is big issue due to increasing threats from the hackers as well as malicious elements in Internet shopping payment as well as thieves for e-card payments
• Lack of knowledge and skills is a big problem in Bangladesh in using e-payment system where illiterate population is bigger in mid-age and elder people population categories
• Attitude to a new product vary in this small country where new generation is ready to adopt new things easily while older one is still grapples
• To minimize the cash based transaction is a big goal because the lower strata of society occupies a big portion and threats of thieves, robbers, and other non-social elements are bigger in comparison to its neighboring countries like India. Therefore, spreading e-payment tempo in rural areas of Bangladesh is positive move.

Solutions and Implementations
No doubt, government and banks have taken numerous steps to beat the aforementioned challenges, but initiative by Payza Bangladesh has enhanced advancement procedure of e-payment system noteworthy for Internet shoppers and others. Through various schemes like SimplySendBD and Payza e-wallet, this payment gateway providing group has revolutionized the entire scenario of Internet shopping experiences.

Moreover, Payza has boosted the morals of e-commerce providers in Bangladesh and for Bangladesh at admirable levels. The most important thing Payza has done is that it has given highly cheaper yet quality alternative for e-transactions and e-payment to an underprivileged country like Bangladesh.

If you have any questions or comments, we invite you to share them with us by leaving a comment below or joining us on our Payza Facebook and Payza Twitter pages.  

Payza Bangladesh Provides Different Account Types for Sending and Receiving Money

Whether you wish to send or receive money online, accept payments for your sold products or services, or even managing businesses online, you need to have Payza account customized to meet your needs. Let’s check the account types and their benefits in e-transactions.

Bangladesh is a tiny country, but growing economy on the world map. Government, infrastructure, and Bangladeshis are growing mature over the time and trying to keep pace with advent of technologies. Today, Bangladesh has huge mass of migrant population outside the country that is fueling the native economy by sending money, work, and entrepreneurs in different modes.

Thus, the lifestyle of the average Bangladeshi is improving and modernization getting ways ahead. The ultimate side effect of this is in the growth of e-commerce and e-transfer activities using modern technologies and tools. Mobile and 3G/4G like communication forms have made Internet ubiquitous and easily accessible in the hands of poor to rich strata of society.

Role of Unique Payment Gateways

In wake of increased sending and receiving money interactions, Bangladesh needs customized and unique payment gateway solution providers who understand the goals of government and people by-and-large. Fortunately, Payza has taken bid to ease the sending and receiving money interactions of Bangladeshis online. In fact, Payza Bangladesh is integrating the latest and excellent payment gateway technologies in its offerings, exclusively for Bangladesh, time-to-time and going to offer different types of accounts with different sets of features and functionality.

Payza accounts allows users, who wish to do limited money exchanges in form of sending or receiving money across the world covering approx more than 190 countries. The Payza account types permit users to receive money with little fees in compared to other quality players and let them send money for zero fees. For non-residents Bangladeshis, nearly 21 currencies are available as options to send money in Bangladesh by converting them in Taka. Apart from these, these account types support various incentives and referral programs offered by Payza enabled merchants and other referrals.

Type #1: Personal Account
This account type is the most appropriate option for tech-savvy users. As, it lets them to sell/buy online, accept or make payments using credit/debit cards, users can send invoices to their customers if they use this account for business purposes, this account also let them to customize payment process, and send them instant notification on each interactions of either side. Of course, this type of account holders has to bear negligible or small amount of fees for sending and receiving money online or through e-transactions.

Type #2: Business Account
As its name suggests it is exclusively for businesses and enterprises, which have to manage one or more businesses and augment their brands using business names in all sorts of transactions. Therefore, this type of account gives all needed features and functionality for a reputed and intricate business whether doing e-commerce or working on Internet for multiple purposes. No doubt, Payza Bangladesh is recurring fees for such account worth the services it offers, but cheaper in compared to other players in the market for the same user experiences.

If you have any questions or comments, we invite you to share them with us by leaving a comment below or joining us on our Payza Facebook and Twitter pages.

Social Media & Online Shopping in Bangladesh

Bangladeshi entrepreneurs are facing many challenges while establishing their own independent online shopping websites. Against these, social media networking sites like Facebook offers cheaper and more viable alternatives for them. Thus, social media have boosted the online shopping trends in the Bangladesh at initial stage and now e-commerce stores are following the trends and establishing full-fledged stores.

In recent past, Bangladesh was a country of deprivation in terms of modern technologies and affluent lifestyles. It was blessed by its unstable political and scanty natural resources against the dense population.

After 2007, gradually scenario has changed due to penetrations of ICT, proliferation of mobility, and initiatives of government as well as some entrepreneurs. Now, Bangladeshis are enjoying broadband connections, mobile Internet access through 3G/4G technologies, Internet banking, credit/debit card payment, bKash, and Payza Bangladesh like secure payment gateways for local and international money transactions.

Role of Social Media – Facebook
Besides these advancements, popularity of Facebook in Bangladesh has added more advantages for online shoppers as well as online business entrepreneurs. Facebook has offered the cheapest alternative for the online shopping store startups and it was started with clothing items including traditional dresses like Salwar Kameez, Sari, etc. No doubt, there were women entrepreneurs at first place who were running home based boutiques.

Practical Examples
If you look at the practical examples, the first name comes is of Safwan Rizvi of Hardstyle Revolution brand, as she is enjoying approx 15K customer support through Facebook page initially and now through her own website. She has achieved such popularity within the shortest span of three years.

Another woman entrepreneur who had recognized the immense potential of Facebook pages was the owner of Style World, as she had started her journey from 2005 through Facebook, and had captured customers beyond the country borders. Therefore, you can find more than 600K likes on her Facebook fan page of her business Style World.

The story similar to it was that of Andeem, which is an established fashion brand in Banani enjoying its own flagship store. The Andeem was a brainchild of Eemam Ahmed and; Farah Deeba, which had started on the Facebook initially, and eventually turned in to the reputed brick as well as online shopping destination for Bangladeshis. Thus, Facebook is playing vital role in providing a feasible and viable platform for the female designer as well as other female entrepreneurs for quick and reliable exposure.

Reasons Behind
Social media or social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. are providing different opportunities for businesses to augment their brand and create an online reputation through transparent communication with their potential audience/customers. For instance, creating Facebook business page cost nil against establishing a website or a physical store. Administrative or overhead cost of online venture through Facebook page is nothing unless you hire one or two fellows to manage the day-to-day affairs and SMO campaign.

Moreover, Facebook page bring transparency and live dialogue between the business and audience through freedom of expression, as anyone can express her experiences with brand and show likeness or dis-likeness through comments, Like button, or sharing the post placed on the Facebook account. Recently, Facebook has taken some initiations to provide payment and other options through its paid services using online and other standard payment methods.

Review of Value-Added Features of Payment Gateways

Sometime being the online merchants, we don’t know many value added features of payment gateways. If we thoroughly study them, we can make our life easy and end-user experiences robust. Therefore, Payza in Bangladesh is the right choice for Bangladeshi e-commerce if you know it well.

Starting an e-commerce venture online is not much easy in comparison to establishing brick-and-mortar units in real world. Your exercise begins with finding good e-commerce web development partner and sharing your marketing strategies with the web development company.

E-commerce developers will share their daises with you for selection of technologies, research on your target audience, features and functionality needed for your e-commerce, shopping cart integration, payment gateway integration, in-site search engine integration, and so many aspects related to your e-commerce development.

Besides these, your staff has to draw planning for order management, shipping management, warehouse management, support services, etc. to implement them once the product unveils. Fundamentally, we do all those exercises in order to grab money from our targeted audience. Therefore, we bring visitors on our door once, show our offering through a short or long journey. Finally, excite them to buy our products or services depicted on our e-commerce storefront.

Hence, we reach at our final aim, to grab money, only when our shoppers click or tap the door of payment gateway by unveiling their payment details and finishing checkout process. In short, we can say that our money is where the payment gateway is. Therefore, the importance of the selection of payment gateway can’t be diluted anyhow.

What is payment gateway in fact?

It is a process or programming module that facilitates us to connect our website or say shopping cart with valid merchant account at a processing bank. This way our shoppers can purchase goods/products/services on virtual spaces, without handing over any case, in any physical form.

Which characteristics do you expect from a good payment gateway?

If you want to select the most appropriate payment gateway for your online storefront, some knowledge about your ideal payment gateway is essential and should have some comparative insights for contemporary payment gateways used in your regions or the regions of your targeted audience. Yes, the selection of payment gateways should be regionally, otherwise you will lose faith, favor, and fans of your e-store quickly.

Security:

Secure payment gateway is prime concern of any shopper and that needs multiple measures to be taken at developer side, your side, and your payment gateway service provider side.

• The selection of affordable payment gateway in sense of cheaper registration and transaction fees is at your side
•  Proper integration and customizing encryption or security layers according to your bespoken needs is at your developer side
• Offering trustworthy environment and populating brand is at your payment gateway side
• Selecting appropriate payment option and feeding right data in right or say secure manner is at your shopper side

Virtual Terminal Services: 
If any shopper direct at your support services and express her desire to buy product instantly, don’t lose opportunity and use virtual terminal services offered by your merchant or payment gateway and fill web form manually to fix the deal or order. This is the best characteristic of any good payment gateway and its provider.

Fraud Prevention Tools:
There are many fraud prevention tools to save you losing money on chargeback services such as Address Verification Services (AVS), CW2 as three or four-digit security number on the back of debit or credit card, and other online detection methods to stop any unusual behavior of the shopper.

Others:
Apart from the aforementioned important characteristics, below are some name of characteristics to know and expect them to include in your payment gateway solutions developed for Bangladeshi shoppers in order to win their loyalty forever.

•  Recurring Billing
•  eCheck Processing
•  Choice of APIs
•  Affordability/cost
•  NPS integration
•  E-wallet
•  Easy money toppling 

Fortunately, Payza Bangladesh is only payment gateway that offers all required traits of the best fit for Bangladeshi online shoppers and e-commerce entrepreneurs.

Selection of Payment Gateway the Bangladeshi E-Commerce Dilemma

When web developers create e-commerce for Bangladesh, selection of payment gateway is always challenging due to unique scenario of e-commerce in Bangladesh. Recent moves of Payza Bangladesh have offered it an edge over other rivals even at local level for various modes of payment.

Generally, e-commerce web developers and e-commerce mobile app developers either are integrating payment gateways with what their competitors in that e-commerce niche has done or simply ask the client if it is B2B project. Very few e-commerce developers have inclination to go through extensive search process and find out the actual needs of targeted audience.

We have general perception regarding payment gateway functions such as:

•  Accept payment rapidly
•  Accept payment easily
•  Accept payment securely
•  Build trust carefully

These are common expectations from any standard payment gateways solution for any quality e-commerce storefront. However, deviations and additions are taking place when regional, cultural, social, and economic factors involve in the decision of payment gateways integration of the eCommerce stores.

For instance, PayPal is considered as number one global payment gateway solution across the globe, but its higher fees, over sensitivity for extra sale or loads, and excessive paper work in many instances are hindering factors for many regions of the world, particularly developing and locally protective policies implementing countries.

No doubt, Bangladesh is one of them and has unique, but valid expectations from any payment gateway operation for its citizens and within legal territory of the country. If we check features and functionality of a payment gateway suitable for Bangladeshi online shoppers or e-transactions, we can realize these facts obviously.

Unique Needs of Payment Gateways for Bangladesh

Affordable Fees:

As we know, the Bangladeshi currency Taka is very weak against dollar in international market and compared to neighboring countries like India. Thus, if any payment gateway counts its sign up, transaction, and other fees in dollar or Pound like strong currencies, it proves non-viable and non-feasible for such poor country or its citizens.

It is good if sign up fees incurred for large volume of transaction seekers and same for transaction fees when large volume of transactions taking place by big business houses or international players working from foreign countries. Thus, affordability is prime issue for lower to mid level of users in Bangladesh when the selection of payment gateway is in question. Fortunately, Payza Bangladesh is the cheapest payment gateways valid and available in Bangladesh without compromising the quality of services despite such competitive fee structure.

Ease and Convenience:

Payza is highly customized payment gateway solution for Bangladesh because it supports numerous currencies around the world and have presence in more than 190 countries of the world where possibilities of Bangladesh based business transactions or presence of NRB from Bangladesh are high.

The algorithm, user interface, and user experiences crafted on Payza Bangladesh is the most befitting solution for the Bangladeshis. In fact, Payza had run thorough research of Bangladeshi culture, behavior, and preferences prior to developed and unveiled Payza solutions so it can address exact needs of Bangladeshi online shoppers and other Internet communities.

Moreover, Payza Bangladesh has collaborated with leading banks of Bangladesh to execute OPGSP payment and BEFTN like services to meet local needs of online shopping community as well as locals to topple or withdraw money easily and in comprehensive ways. Therefore, Payza allows credit and debit cards, mobile, on service desk of banks and other multiple methods for its users to accomplish their tasks or needs easily, securely, and rapidly.

Trustworthy:
Payza obeys local rules of the country and support the law and its requirement by providing essential info to the government bodies on valid reasons or hiding the sensitive info of its users to protect their privacy. Thus, it has won hearts of all Bangladeshi folk within short span.

Online Shopping in Bangladesh Empowering Women

Online shopping trends have started a bit late in Bangladesh, but have begun with clothes like Salwar Kameez and saris of different home based boutiques ran by women entrepreneurs. However, the female contributors of online businesses come from all folks – teachers, doctors, students, homemakers, IT Professionals, designers, etc. and contribute in the growth of Bangladesh through their online ventures.

Bangladesh is 3rd world country with adverse economic conditions and under the influence of unstable political and social regimes even though the presence of democracy. Therefore, women in Bangladesh have the least privileges to grow freely compared to western developed world.

Growth of ICT
Fortunately, recent stability of democracy and will power of government has brought rays of hope in form of introduction of information and communication technologies (ICT). Internet and mobile usage are now becoming norms here gradually. Therefore, new areas of business opportunities are opening day-by-day and new generation entrepreneurs from outside the country as well as from within the country are gaining immense benefits. The most beneficial area by the growth of ICT is e-commerce and high proliferation of online shopping storefronts in Bangladesh is giving its solid evidences. Online shopping ease the life of an average citizen by reducing traveling time, reduction on traveling expenditure, and break the boundaries of locality through country wide or worldwide access of shopping options.

Ease in Payment
Recent intrusions of robust payment gateways like Payza Bangladesh have freed Bangladeshis from security related issues as well as money topping problems through its innovative schemes for online shoppers in Bangladesh. Moreover, growth of mobility has assured entrepreneurs to take easy and cost-effective approaches in their online shopping experiences.

Growth Cycle of Online Shopping in Bangladesh 
In Bangladesh initially, common commodities like clothes and electronic items have gained attention of online business entrepreneurs and among them women are pioneer. In the year of 2010 many housewives, working women, and some female students have taken forward steps to make e-clothe stores viable through ultimate online opportunities of social media emergence. Facebook has helped them to create web pages and provide trustworthy platform to begin.

They have begun with their traditional dresses including Salwar Kameez and empowered themselves to jump into the sea of e-commerce through their own e-commerce websites by offering secure and robust user experiences for online shoppers in Dhaka and rest of Bangladesh gradually. Now, banks, government agencies, and other foreign entrepreneurs from Bangladesh have extended helping hands to empower Bangladeshi women for e-retailing and establishing online marketplaces for all sorts of products including online dress shopping in Bangladesh, online t-shirt shopping in Bangladesh, buy shoes online in Bangladesh, etc.

In results of such efforts, many mega e-commerce stores has come into the picture such as Akhoni, Cell Bazar, ClickBD, Bikroy, etc. up to the 2013. Rapid digitalization across the private and government sectors, proliferation of mobiles, and influence of neighboring countries and their growth are some factors, which have increased the participation of women in various arenas including political, social, and economical as a whole.

These have boosted the empowerment of women, their families and overall community at the end. Therefore, today we are witnessing rapid growth of online shopping among the folks due to women working in the areas of teachers, doctors, students, homemakers, IT Professionals, designers, etc.

Ways to Boost Online Shopping in Bangladesh

Just overcoming the infrastructural problem is not key to successful e-commerce development, but real secrete lies in the creation of conductive environment that enable and encourage customers to do online shopping and Bangladesh now needs it. Let’s see what we can do to boost the purchase intentions of the people of Bangladesh regarding to online shopping including offering outstanding payment options.

It is true that Bangladesh has set back in e-commerce march with advent of technologies due to its political and socioeconomic turmoil in the past. Now, government and people of Bangladesh are trying to link country with rest of digital world through development of supporting framework for online shoppers and other Internet based activities such as secure money transactions.

However, investing and trying to create good infrastructure for online shopping in Bangladesh is not only one key of success. In fact, we need something more than that to populate e-commerce culture in this country. Among the many factors that influence the culture of online shopping in Bangladesh, creating a thirst or say, developing customer purchase intention is the major one. Let’s check what can assist businesses or organizations to boost the online shopping intentions among the people of Bangladesh.

Geography and Demography of Target Audience

It has observed that young, educated, and only high income groups take part in online shopping or Internet related activities. No doubt, some retired officers and high income middle aged people use e-commerce, but their numbers are limited. These groups of people mostly located in the urban areas of Bangladesh.
Therefore, it is mandatory to make Internet affordable and accessible across the country so middle class people of society can afford it. No doubt, recent mobile or handheld devices craze has opened new fronts to access Internet in the remote and rural areas through 2G/3G as well as other mode of cellular connections.

Attitudes of Target Audience/Customers

Researchers have found that certain attitudes influence the intentions of the people towards e-commerce and e-transactions and they are:

•  Benefits/advantages
• Consequences/ensues
• Privacy
• Security
• Willingness of Interactions

Unstable socioeconomic and political conditions have created lots of distrusts among the people and money transactions need the high security guarantees. No doubt, many residents, and non-resident Bangladeshi entrepreneurs have good work in this regard and offered dependable and long-term solutions.

Social Support
Here role of social culture, government, and media is critical. If they all work in positive directions and create highly conductive environment for the online shoppers, everything can turn in to the favor of vast e-commerce business opportunities for present and future generations.

Legal Support
It is true that hackers, mischievous people, and anti-social elements are prevailing in every society and in each country. Therefore, adequate laws and implementation infrastructure are essential to offer secure environment for online shopping activities in Bangladesh. Fortunately, recent moves of government and interests of businesses have pushed the matter in right directions and in right dimensions.

IT Supports
March of Internet related technologies are in rapid pace across the world. People are adapting and used to smartphones, tablets, and even wearable devices besides traditional laptops/desktops for their Internet related needs. If support of IT software and hardware is adequate in terms of creating quality products at affordable rates, the market of online shopping in Bangladesh can be flourishing at amazing pace.

RESOURCE

If we look at the people of Bangladesh, we may find that there are lots of efforts need to be done by businesses and entrepreneurs besides the government agencies in this regard. If we look at the above given factors, we will find that security is the prime concern of the customers or Internet users in Bangladesh. This article offer different suggestions on the ways to boost online shopping in Bangladesh therefore, this article may give you useful insights for further work in this regard.

Supporting Framework for Online Shopping in Bangladesh

Online shopping can only flourish in the presence of solid supporting frameworks and adaptability of the people. In Bangladesh, infrastructure development for e-commerce had slow pace in the past, but recent moves of the government and awareness of people have made rapid changes. New generation entrepreneurs have fueled the changes by introducing various e-payment mechanisms with desired security and robust experiences. Let’s go through the past and recent developments.

Today the reach of Internet seems rapid due to proliferated use of handheld and wearable devices. Smartphones and tablets have made Internet ubiquitous and accessible round the clock from anywhere. Therefore, various commercial activities taking place on the handheld devices and the most beneficial segment is e-commerce.

Unfortunately, the fruits of these tech advancements are not dispersed equally in the rest of the world. Bangladesh is one of the countries, which lagged behind in the tech race, due to its adverse political and social situations. Telecommunication and Internet technologies are backbones of e-commerce development in any country and Bangladesh has slow pace of development in this regard. Therefore, Internet access is uneven and limited to specific regions as well as up to specific segments of society.

Deficiencies of Infrastructure

There are visible deficiencies of infrastructural support framework in forms of :

• Poor electricity network resulting into poor supply
• Low affordability of online shopping components such as Internet affordability, computing devices’ affordability, and handheld devices affordability have restricted its reach up to affluent class of the society
• Low literacy level also affecting the usage of Internet and acceptability of online shopping in Bangladesh 

Online Purchase Framework

 It is true that the proliferation of online shopping and online money transaction activities greatly depending on the online purchase framework and the ultimate components of this framework are:

• Purchase Intentions
• Purchase Adaptation
• Purchase Continuance 

These purchase related factors have direct relationships with the behavior and several characteristics such as:

• Consumer Characteristics: Their life style, motivation, knowledge, innovativeness, involvement, demographics, etc.
• Product/ Service Characteristics: The product knowledge, product type, layout, frequency of purchase, tangibility, differentiation, price etc.
• Medium Characteristics: web design, navigation, ease of use, interface usefulness, reliability, security, etc.
• Merchant and Intermediary Characteristics: Service quality, privacy and security control, brand reputation, delivery /logistics, after sale service, incentive, etc.
• Environmental Influences: The culture, subjective norm, exposure, attention, image, etc.

If you closely look at these characteristics, you will find that many of them are at backward conditions or lacking at all and its reasons are obvious:

• Poor national level public key infrastructure
• Distrust regarding to secure e-transactions whether in local or international currencies
• Social and technical challenges
• Lack of legal framework to support

Recent Progress in Bangladesh
Fortunately, in recent past, government and many entrepreneurs within Bangladesh or from foreign countries who have taken deeper interest in the development of online shopping framework in Bangladesh, By being Bangladeshi (citizens/origins) these entrepreneurs have brought some progressive changes by influencing government policies, investing in e-commerce and allied sectors, and changing the mind set of people by-and-large.

For instance, medium characteristics and merchant or intermediary characteristics as mentioned above are contextual and you can see some through changes. Today software developer community of Bangladesh is competing with its neighboring rivals like India and Pakistan at outsourcing fronts. Thus, they are indirectly improving the quality of above mentioned components of supporting framework for e-commerce development. Same way, trusted payment gateway providers are helping not only national level e-transactions, but also improving the user experiences of Foreign exchanges coming from various sources.

If political stability persists and tendency of people improving regarding to online shopping in Bangladesh, days are not far away that shine the overall economy of Bangladesh and lifestyle of the people.

RESOURCE

This article focus on the supporting framework for online shopping in Bangladesh that will give useful insights to web developers as well as entrepreneurs venturing in to e-commerce niche.

Technical Aspects of Online Shops in Bangladesh

Online shops designing and development technologies targeting smartphones and now wearable devices in advanced countries, but their penetrations in Bangladesh like developing countries are still limited and need revisits on existing technologies itself. Let’s go through the contemporary technologies used in the development of online shops in Bangladesh and their future.

Our expectations over contemporary modern Bangladesh e-commerce development may seem overwhelming. However, present awareness of people, interests of government, and efforts of entrepreneurs have changed entire scenario. No doubt, B2B have bright future due to exports with foreign countries of the rest of the world. In fact, B2G has the highest share, as government is the biggest buyers of the goods and services using online roots and people take benefits of it in return.

Technical Aspects of the growth of the online shops in Bangladesh

Now, we have clear picture of the target audiences and path of growth of e-commerce storefronts in Bangladesh. If we are going to explore the technical aspects involved in the e-commerce growth at present, we may find following things.

• Server Technologies is growing, but at slow pace, due to challenges of modern changes in hardware as well as software in this niche

• Connectivity is improving at good rate because of introduction of 2G/3G technologies for the mobile and other users. This improvement has reduced the burden over cable network and forced services providers to be competitive without declining quality further

• Designing and development technologies are at the fastest pace because outsourcing industry is observing phenomenal growth. Entrepreneurs have enough options for the selection of programming language, OS platforms, responsive designing, and money transaction facilities or payment methods/payment gateways

Programming and Databases Management

 Affordability is the main detrimental factor for the spread of e-commerce or Bangladeshi online shopping websites, open source is the ultimate solution for that and PHP is obvious one. Initially majority of online storefronts in Bangladesh have adapted primitive PHP open source software like OsCommerce, X-cart, Zen Cart, etc. At present, we can see introduction of BigCommerce, WooCommerce, VirtueMart, and mainly Magento changing the landscape of online stores for B2B, B2C, and B2G sectors alike.

At Present:

• Majority of online shops in BD are responsive and offering advanced features as well as functionality for perfect e-commerce experiences. 

• Advance search, quick and secure check out, reliable payment methods, personalization, and superb database management for small to big data is promising traits of the present e-commerce websites or web portals in the BD. 

• Adaptation and implementation of modern encryption technologies have made e-transactions secure and safe at all levels.

RESOURCE

At present B2C ecommerce is taking off and hitting new targets rapidly despite its slow growth in the past. This article will give you useful insights on the recent progress of IT software development technologies for the online shops in Bangladesh

Online Shops in Bangladesh—An Emerging Business Sector

After prolonged sufferings, Bangladesh is observing phenomenal growths in e-commerce and related activities on commercial fronts. Changing mind sets and advent of technologies have changed the scenario of overall economy and lifestyles of common man. At present many online shops in Bangladesh are performing excellently and serving people in great ways. Let’s check how and what they are doing.

In past, Bangladeshi economy was performing the worst due to high inflation rate, mindset of Bangladeshi towards startup entrepreneurs, high interest rates, and lack of platform for entrepreneurs to address their issues. However, recent moves from government and awareness of globalization among the new generation and affluent society of Bangladesh have given birth of many unique and modern businesses and uplift of economy by-and-large.

Governments in recent past have initiated many schemes to establish modern IT infrastructure and Internet framework along with technological advancement in telecommunication including 2G/3G network for smart handheld devices. At other hand technologies became cheaper and affordable despite desirable improvements. These have made good recipe for entrepreneurs to invest and get some fortunes from it. Many residential and non-residential Bangladeshi have invested in various sectors of economy and technologies. However, the significant growth was observed in e-commerce or online shops in compared to other emerging fields.

                                                                   

Reasons behind the Raise of Online Shops in Bangladesh

Just like other society of the word, economic growth in Bangladesh has changed the lifestyles of the Bangladeshi. Therefore, you will observe the scarcity of time, rush of commuters, increase in urbanization, frequent shutdowns due to political unrest, and thirst for more in modern Bangladesh. This has led people to take shortcuts and help of modern communication technologies to grease their day-to-day chores. 

Proliferation of smart mobile devices has brought everything on their fingertips/mouse tips and online shopping in Bangladesh is becoming trendy. People love infinite search options, comparative shopping options, home delivery or click to brick type shopping, and most importantly personalization on e-commerce portals along with personalized incentives.

Current Online Shops in Bangladesh

For instance, high turnover of ClickBD is indicating love of Bangladeshi for online trades and shopping. CellBazar has grabbed wide sects of Bangladeshi society and covered urban as well as rural areas in these days. Numbers of products and services listed on CellBazar makes it the biggest e-commerce portal in Bangladesh. 

Besides simple B2C ecommerce portals, Bangladesh has variety of other e-commerce web presence like Akhoni, Bikroy and BD Giftshop online market places where you can get daily deals and other discounted deals for range of other brick and online stores just like Groupon in Australia and other western counterparts.

We can’t underestimate the contributions of entrepreneurs who have made online shopping and its payment or money transaction safe and secure, like Payza has done recently. Thus, cumulative approaches have changed the scenario of Bangladeshi society by introduction of online shopping stores and other Internet related activities. 

RESOURCE

No doubt, government and its agencies are working as the biggest contributors in form of B2G e-commerce and help in the boost of online shopping awareness among the people who approaches the government services and want better results. This article focuses on the evaluation of past and present scenario for online shops in Bangladesh.

Online Shopping In Bangladesh—Path from Dark Past to Shining Future

In world history, communication technologies have advanced the life of human race in many aspects, and its influences are continuing until today. Unfortunately, Bangladesh had started lately in compared to rest of the world. The scenario of Internet usage and online shopping in Bangladesh was grim before a decade. However, recent moves of government and entrepreneurs have shaded rays of hopes in new generations for a bright future. Let’s take a review that what happened and what will be in next days.

Origin of the Bangladesh and its political history has granted it poor and backward status in compared to its ultimate neighbors. Low literacy rate and adverse social profiles have hastened its march to bright future significantly. Lack of essential infrastructure is apparent in Bangladesh since its inception. Information and communication technology sector is suffering heavily since the beginning. However, in May 2006, a ray of hope emerged when Bangladesh was connected with submarine cable for Internet.

Despite such opportunity, social and economical condition of Bangladesh was not in favor of advance Internet usage due to lack of network and related technologies like high quality modem and 3G networks for mobiles. User profiles were restricted up to affluent class of people. People of higher qualifications and profiles were surfing net regularly so chances of proliferation of online shopping in Bangladesh were deemed until the 2010.

Changes Begun

Afterwards, political will-power and attitudes had changed and government, under the pressures of sizable neo-generation entrepreneurs, have taken steps to developed Information and Communication Technology infrastructure, begun strategy debates, and invested heavily in due course. The maturity of citizens and political stability has infused great will power in to the improvements of the conditions of online shopping in Bangladesh.

Role of NRBD

At present, sizable portion of literate people living abroad and spending the big part of their fortunes to literate their relatives and people of next generation. Their dreams are to simulate lifestyle of the western countries at some extent. Thus, e-commerce storefronts are mushrooming rapidly on the horizon of the web of the Bangladesh. No doubt, there are not robust and secure online shopping experiences exist in compared to its western counterparts, but initiation is there.

 Present Scenario of Online Shopping in Bangladesh

The present scenario of e-commerce is favoring online shopping of essential commodities and fashion apparels greatly. Therefore, online dress shopping, online T-shirt shopping, and buying shoes online are trendy activities of e-commerce shoppers. Of course, trust and security level for online shoppers are a bit low so online shopping by home delivery and online shopping by cash on delivery are favorite mode of payments in Bangladesh.

Online Payment in Bangladesh

Surely, credit/debit card payments and net banking options exist in the e-commerce world of Bangladesh, but usage are limited. The same scenario is blinking for the online money transfer service from the foreign countries and vice verso. Fortunately, some entrepreneurs from Bangladesh and its non-resident citizens have initiate some highly trustful and secure payment gateways and online money transfer portals of offer viable and feasible options for the online shopping and money transfer growth.

No doubt, past and present government agencies have supported such movements from entrepreneurs and encouraged them for secure online money exchange activities. It is noteworthy that Bangladesh is not supporting crypto-currency exchanges due to threats from extremists’ activities, but has trust on reliable 3^rd party payment gateways providers because they can furnish critical data when demanded in extreme situations to the nodal government agencies, but protect data from the miscreants and hackers.

 

RESOURCE

This article focuses on the situations of the online shopping in Bangladesh and have torched the scenario from past to present. Such insights not only help people used to do online shopping or currency conversions, but also the e-commerce development community.

 

Payza Bangladesh - Makes You Save on Sending Money Anywhere

Payza Bangladesh has introduced quite simple yet powerful services under the feature of instantly send money to your loved ones with the least charges existing on the planet for such services. This also breaks the myth of digital divide through technological advancements.
‘SimplySendBD’ where you can

Role of Mobiles

The recent onset of mobile devices usage among all the strata of the society including Bangladeshis, have raised the hopes of some feasible solutions using mobile network. Except smartphones, most of the mobiles are affordable and easy to use for the low-literate Bangladeshis. Initially, it was considered as the dividing technologies for poor and rich. Unfortunately, reverse became true and mobile have filled up the gaps.

Today M-Banking is gaining ground in third world country and easy access of Internet through mobile devices have created a place for big payment gateways to enter in these low-strata population of society easily. Just as Indian government has done in Andhra state, Bangladesh is going to implement its G2P payment system using the modern tools and technologies including mobiles and G3 connectivity.

Cost-Effective Sending Money Options

Fortunately, some entrepreneurs have initiated wise and advanced steps towards this direction and Payza Bangladesh is a front-runner. Payza has made sending and receiving money cheaper and quick through SimplySendBD because you don't need to spend more than 2% or $10 even if you want to send $2K. Apart from cost-effectiveness, easy topping options and quick delivery through various modes including cash pickup and home delivery. In due course, Payza Bangladesh has established 5K retail locations across the country.

Inexpensive and convenient remittance options have made receiving of huge aids like $1.4 billion from developed countries quite easily and affordable. This is a significant improvement in alleviating poverty program. Besides foreign aids, migrant Bangladeshis send approx $11.65 billion money to their home county in one year.

These SimplySendBD and e-wallet like features/schemes of Payza Bangladesh is one of the welcome steps towards empowering this emerging economy. Thus, Payza Bangladesh has created conductive environment for the e-commerce in Bangladesh where anyone can pay, send, and receive money at the comfort of their home and within the shortest laps of time.

Payza Bangladesh— Rapidly Moves the Country Forward

Payza is working with clear goals to make Bangladesh a part of global e-commerce without losing its distinguishing traits and unique identity. It has payment gateways and e-transaction solutions, which can work in highly customized ways to honor the needs and wishes of Bangladeshis and their businesses.

If you take the statistics of Internet access of Bangladeshis, you might find the same scenario that occurred in the west before a decade. There are low quality network with few areas covered, mostly urban areas. Users have biases towards the intentions of e-commerce entrepreneurs. Social, political, and economical adversities are hastening overall growth of country that is also influencing the e-commerce and allied sectors.

However, rapid proliferation of mobile devices and high quality 2G/3G connectivity are hopes that will shorten the timeline of progress. Fortunately, Payza has experienced such transitions and technology transformations in last decade among the western regions of the world. Payza Bangladesh knows the pains of those days and how that all happened. Therefore, it has decided to take present challenges of Bangladesh and smooth the transition process with advent of technologies.

Payza Bangladesh—The Most Appropriate Alternative

In due course, Payza Bangladesh has decided to execute the development strategies for the e-commerce where it will address the young generation first. As young generation is tech-savvy and scrappy to learn as well as adapt the incoming technologies/tools rapidly. Youths of new generation are fanatical to simulate the western experiences in their own milieu. Thus, Payza is giving excellent UX, accessibility, and usability for their e-commerce solutions in form of robust payment gateway solutions and e-wallet projects.

Expectations of Bangladeshis

Bangladeshi government and banks are proactive against the threats of economy and finance of the country. They never like frauds, inflation, and scams, those that pose security threats. Therefore, they didn’t allow international players like PayPal or crypto currencies to happen in localities without expected customizations. Payza Bangladesh has given highly acceptable, feasible, and innovative solutions for Bangladeshi ambiance.

Offerings of Payza Bangladesh

Payza Bangladesh has given superb data exchange facilities with desired security aspects. Its e-wallet like innovative concepts has made online payment service and e-transactions, within as well as across the countries of world, quite easy, fast, and reliable. It has provided many alternatives to topple the local currencies in e-wallet. It has eliminated many long authentication steps during e-commerce payments. These advancements are encouraging outsourcing talents to serve wide spectrum of clients across the globe. Exporters and importers have less stress of money exchanges and within range of local laws.

If you look at the e-commerce scenario of Bangladesh, you will find many established as well as start-up players serving wide range of products and services categories. There are many retailers with excellent delivery services on the web sphere of Bangladesh using the latest e-commerce technologies. Marketplace web portals have bulk of items to offer. In short, with secure and reliable payment services, online shopping is the next future thing in Bangladesh where entrepreneurs have guarantees of good ROI.