Customers will regain trust but e-commerce growth will be hampered by infrastructural barriers

Illustration: TBS

As the number of internet users grows, so does the popularity of online shopping. Despite some setbacks and a loss of consumer confidence in the middle of this year, I believe, now that some large companies are stepping forward and investments are increasing, consumers will regain trust in this sector.

Furthermore, because the government has made Unique Business IDs mandatory, small players in F-commerce will benefit from increased consumer confidence.

Any business can go online and become a part of the e-commerce sector at any time, and the number of such businesses will only grow in our country with time.

Traditionally, we have seen, for example, people traveling from distant places to Aarong outlets to buy their desired products. They can now purchase those from aarong.com.

With such a large number of businesses already operating online and the number constantly growing, it is only fair to say that regular monitoring of all of these businesses is an impossible task.

However, certain steps can be taken to improve consumer protection. Most consumers are unaware that there is a hotline through which they can complain, so to begin, the public should be made more aware of the Directorate of National Consumer Rights Protection and their rights as consumers under the laws of the land.

If necessary, it should be made mandatory that all e-commerce websites display this hotline number. In this way, the government will be aware of all incidents.

Secondly, when a complaint is lodged, the appropriate authorities should investigate and attempt to resolve the root cause of the problem as fast as possible.

For instance, why was there a fraud? or, why was there a delay? A monitoring cell can be set up for this purpose.

However, our main barrier remains access to the internet and as long as there is a lack of internet availability and speed in the remote areas of our country, it will continue to be a hindrance in the growth of our e-commerce industry.

When someone goes to a website to buy a specific product, it takes a long time to load, or when s/he places an order, the internet connection suddenly gets disconnected—these are experiences that do not help online businesses in gaining or retaining customers.

Keeping this in mind, access to broadband internet must be expanded. Because the number of mobile internet users is very high, it is clear that we should increase the number of broadband users in remote areas.

Secondly, steps must be taken to ensure proper implementation and compliance with the developed guidelines.

In addition, our digital transaction infrastructure is very poor. What we usually do when we place an order online and then pay in cash at the time of delivery cannot really be called digital commerce or e-commerce.

It will only be digital when we conduct transactions digitally. It can be done with a debit card, a credit card or any other method, but it must be a digital/cashless transaction.

The government must provide incentives to popularise cashless transactions. For example, if you make a purchase on a digital e-commerce site using a credit card and/or debit card, you will not be required to pay VAT.

A cashback system can be implemented to increase the overall popularity of digital transactions. For example, if you make a digital transaction, the government will give you a 5% cash back.

Consumers will receive 2.5% of this 5% while merchants will receive the remaining 2.5%. This way, the consumer will be willing to pay digitally and the merchant will also be willing to accept digitally.

Digital transactions will increase if a plan like this can be developed for the next three to five years. Otherwise, e-commerce will not grow in our country.

Banks should use technology more and ensure greater security. This is because, in my experience, banks do not invest enough in technology, which is why their two-factor authentication and other restrictions make consumers reluctant.

For example, if I have to interact with the bank twice or thrice when buying something or purchasing a ticket, it is very discouraging. It should be a one-click process. The one-click service creates a smooth user experience, which is essential for the success of e-commerce.

E-merchants have some duties as well. They must optimise their supply chain, logistics, and delivery.

Assume that a consumer goes to order something after carefully considering her/his options and discovers that it is out of stock. This discourages the consumer, and s/he will think, "Since it is not available online, I will rather go to a physical store to buy."

This is exactly why the supply chain, as well as logistics and delivery, must be optimised. Even though everyone wants the quickest possible delivery time, if, for some reason, the delivery is delayed, merchants must manage customer expectations ahead of time by notifying the customer about the estimated arrival time.

If I say it will arrive in two days and it actually takes seven days, the customer will be very disappointed. If customer expectations can be managed, customer satisfaction and confidence will rise, and the customer will become a loyal consumer. Thus, the industry will expand.

The expansion of broadband internet and the improvement of user experience should be top priorities in 2022. If we do not address the issues that have been preventing us from achieving these goals to this day with utmost urgency, our goal of having a market worth $3 billion in the next two years will remain a pipe dream.

Syed Almas Kabir

Syed Almas Kabir is President, Bangladesh-Malaysia Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BMCCI)