Covid propels F-commerce product sales by women entrepreneurs
Feminine entrepreneurs who conduct their business through Facebook or F-commerce are acquiring a record number of orders amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic as people continue to shop from your home in fear of infection.
Since early on April, when the infection price suddenly began to climb rapidly, a large number of orders poured in for lifestyle products as the Eid-ul-Fitr shopping time also bumped up revenue. This instantly turned the platform right into a digital purchase juggernaut.
With a follower base which range from 10,000 to over a million people, these entrepreneurs simply have to post an image of their item or showcase it on Facebook live to draw their attention.
Because of this, they typically receive from 50 to a lot more than 1,000 orders daily.
HUR nusrat, an F-commerce page with nearly a million followers, found its product sales double during Ramadan in comparison to pre-pandemic levels.
"Our staff members had to function round-the-clock to provide the large numbers of orders through the second wave that coincided with the peak revenue period," said Nusrat Akhter Lopa, who owns the web page.
Lopa, who started offering items through Facebook back in 2015 with a beginning capital of Tk 1,200, sold thousands of lifestyle products over the last Eid season.
Layla Sarmeen of Safriana's Feel, an F-commerce program that sells women's dresses, said she never thought that she'd get such a tremendous response amid the existing crisis.
"But as soon as I posted an image of my locally sourced goods, all of them had been booked," she added.
Ever since the next wave began, Safriana's Feel has sold products well worth around Tk 4 lakh.
During Ramadan, the business registered sales of about Tk 3 lakh although it was only Tk 50,000 intended for the same period in the pre-pandemic era.
"The tendency to get products online increased through the pandemic and the next wave provided it another force," Sarmeen said.
Tania Sultana of Biraz Bou, a F-commerce system based in Mymensingh, said she sold saris and three pieces worth Tk 7.5 lakh amid the second wave.
The Eid sales time and nationwide lockdown started almost concurrently and that pushed various people to go for online shopping.
The federal government imposed a nationwide lockdown and different strict measures on public activity on April 14 in a bid to curb the surge in coronavirus infections.
"We are still obtaining many orders possibly after Eid," she added.
Sultana continued to thank the ladies and e-Commerce Discussion board (WE), a good Facebook group with 1.2 million members where women with different skills can promote their products.
According to her, she and some additional women in the spot sold over Tk 52 lakh worth standard of living products with the help of WE since the start of the second wave.
With the lessons learnt from last year's Eid, women entrepreneurs were better ready this year because they sourced goods beforehand, enhanced their marketing and done smoothing the delivery service, said Nasima Akter Nisha, president of WE.
"So, sales during the second wave and Ramadan had been superb," she added.
Nisha said F-commerce created a good scope to empower ladies, a lot of whom are coming forward to showcase their abilities and talent.
F-commerce offers been thriving during the last couple of years in Bangladesh thanks to the huge size of the Facebook crowd, which, according to data firm Statista, has reached 41 million. This spots Bangladesh among the most notable 10 highest Facebook-using countries.
With the option to boost revenue by paying Facebook, which automates the paid users' advertising to show goods that are tailored to each person's interests, many youths, especially women entrepreneurs, started selling goods or services on the world's greatest social media platform.
Thousands of women from across the country now sell a variety of goods through Facebook, particularly handmade traditional outfits items and homemade food.
During previous year's Eid season, when there is a strict lockdown set up, most F-commerce business owners were unprepared and scrambled to provide a deluge of orders.
Regarding to logistics aggregators and sector insiders, during Ramadan this season, around 1,000 woman F-commerce entrepreneurs delivered around 35,000 clothing items each day up till Eid evening.
Rahath Ahmed, co-founder and chief advertising officer of Paperfly, which makes doorstep deliveries because of its online merchants, said they have been making a wide array of deliveries of F-commerce platforms run by girls.
F-commerce entrepreneurs now understand that they have to supply the customers with high-quality products to achieve the long run.
"As the product quality increases, female customers flock with their platforms and products are being sold out extremely fast," he added.
