About 18 percent of middle-class people in Dhaka, Chittagong and Sylhet are making online purchases every day, a business research firm said in a survey yesterday. Some 86 percent of the respondents expressed trust in e-commerce operators and their products, according to the survey by LightCastle Partners that provides advisory and analytic services The survey — the Rise of Digital Consumer Class in Bangladesh — covered 450 respondents in the three major cities. The study also showed that 11 percent of the respondents neither trust nor distrust e-commerce products, while 3 percent expressed a lack of trust. The survey covered mostly young people, a majority aged between 20 and 40 years, and have monthly incomes ranging between $251 and $650, surveyors said. The survey revealed the strong position of e-space, and the predominance of the affluent class in utilisation of online trade, said Bijon Islam, chief executive officer of LightCastle Partners. Currently, food delivery service via the internet accounts for about a quarter of e-commerce. Another 21 percent of the respondents purchase clothes and accessories online, and 32 percent said they are planning to buy clothes and accessories on the internet within the next 12 months. Just 4 percent of the respondents said they are using online platforms to buy consumer electronic goods, and 32 percent intend to do so within the next year. Another important segment is grocery, as 4 percent of the respondents buy those online, and another 28 percent are planning to start. Grocery and consumer electronics are set to boost e-commerce in the next 12 months, Islam said. Currently, 7 percent of the people use online platforms to buy beauty products, and the number will jump to 18 percent in the next 12 months, the study predicted. This is not the scene just for the three big cities of Bangladesh, Nazim Farhan Choudhury, a digital marketing analyst, said at the launch of the study at EMK Centre in Dhaka. “There is no doubt about digitisation on the whole, as people are using digital platforms for everything — from entertainment to purchases and making doctors’ appointments across the country,” Choudhury said. Trust is the most important factor for increasing online commerce, as sales do not happen without trust, he said. Around 51 percent of the respondents were early starters for online purchases, and about 26 percent are from Chittagong while the rest live in Dhaka and Sylhet. Bangladesh’s e-commerce sites are getting increasingly more visitors: Ekhanei.com is the most popular among the service providers, as some 21 percent of respondents use the site, while 17 percent use Bikroy.com.
The majority of e-commerce business in Bangladesh falls under consumer-to-consumer transaction business model, where a consumer sells products to another consumer, while some business to consumer e-commerce sites also operate in the country. As the research suggests, the majority of about 28 percent digital consumers, spend an average of Tk 1,000 to Tk 10,000, per visit.
