There was a time when companies depended on their physical existence to attract customers and for daily sales. However, right now is the period of digital advertising, internet marketing, selling, and procurement.
The thought of e-commerce isn’t new. On the other hand, keeping in mind the current situation of our country, it is an emerging idea. We are still comfortable to the same old method for purchasing things – going to the bazaar, visiting shops, bargaining with shop keepers, and returning with the product.
The landscape of Pakistan’s online market has seen a few exciting “evolution’s” in the last few months. It is a good thing that many people are investing in this business and we have started seeing new “online” shopping platforms in the field of Pakistan’s online-space, which is one more element of excitement. Considering that we are still unable to bring global online payment solutions like PayPal to Pakistan, we have managed to work around it with the availability of alternatives of getting online payments – and let e-business flourish.
The truth is we don’t even have many people online in Pakistan (optimistic stats say a 15.3% web penetration with 29 million users… however I personally think the REAL number is near to 15-16 million internet users.
In Pakistan, the trend of online shopping is still in its beginning phase and is facing many hurdles to grow. The notable hurdles are: unavailability of Online payment solutions like PayPal, frequent failures of power,narrow user of internet barely one per cent of the entire population, high bandwidth rates, security issue of transactions on the internet, and last but not least the severe and monopoly role of the PTCL.
It can be concluded that there is a great scope for the business of e- commerce in Pakistan, and most companies are enthusiastic to heading off to the digital world, but right now because of unavailability of any proper policy framework and limited web market, companies are holding their plans to begin e-business until clouds of barriers disappear.
