The Future Of Ecommerce In Bangladesh Information Technology Essay

Ecommerce is new concept for Bangladesh. Bangladesh is an over populated and developing country. The future of ecommerce in Bangladesh is bright. TV and other traditional media advertising are considered an intrusion.  Ecommerce puts the control of when and how we will buy products and services into the hands of the buyer. Ecommerce is the internet version of commerce . E-commerce (electronic-commerce) refers to business over the Internet. When the entire transaction is completed through internet then it is called pure ecommerce. Otherwise is called partial ecommerce. (Turban E.: Electronic Commerce’06)

In Bangladesh, most of the people think commerce means transactions (sales and purchases).But Commerce is a part of trade which deals with the exchange of goods and services from manufacturer to ultimate consumer.

A developing country can be industrialized and modernized if it can extensively apply IT to enhance productivity and international competitiveness, develop e-commerce and e-governance applications. An information-based or knowledge based country is composed of IT products, IT applications in country and economy as a whole. Bangladesh is taking advantage of e-commerce through opening of economies. It is essential for promoting competition and diffusion of Internet technologies.

Examples Of companies using E-commerce

Amajon.com: Provides access to several millions books electronically. It also sells music CDS, electronic software, toys, video games, prescription drugs, and much more

Apple Computer: Sells computer in online.

The role of Ecommerce

Ecommerce through internet, websites, mailing, the producer and consumer interact with each other throughout any corner of the world. They can share any information in any time and collect information for gaining competitive advantage. Using ecommerce businessmen can track the delivery system and know the amount of inventory. That’s why they can provide information in a timely manner.

“E-Commerce has changed dramatically the way business is conducted through total volume of business done in this new way is very small percentage wise. Business organizations and consumers are both realizing that future business will be heavily dependent on the Internet”. (Iqbal H. 2007: p. 2).

E-commerce reduces the difficulties of communication between the buyers and sellers. “Communication between the buyers and sellers has become critical as each can opt to explore a greater number of alternatives than ever before. E-commerce through Internet, e-mails, websites, and other facilities, enables a businessman to be linked with every corner of the world, and thus opens up greater opportunities in the world market.” (Hossain N. 2000: p. 1).

There are several key reasons that Ecommerce appeals to the population:

most convenient way to shop.

Ecommerce offers the ability to shop 24 hours a day

Most ecommerce stores offer bigger discounts and savings on their products.

Comparison-shopping is simple because of the vast selection.

Large profit to the manufacturer:

More production for more demand and Reducing price

unemployment solution

increasing standard of living

Create skillful worker

Expands the marketplace

Problem of Behind the Ecommerce in Bangladesh:

There are some problems behind to use ecommerce in Bangladesh are given below:

People are not familiar with this kind of transaction and business.

Few people can access internet and can send email. Most of the people in Bangladesh live-in village. That’s why the use of computer and internet is far to think.

Villagers are not imagining to buy the product by going to the market.

People have few knowledge about the internet and the purchasing or bidding system of ecommerce.

Consumers may not trust the suppliers and quality product. Moreover, the suppliers may also in doubt to receive the cash.

Through internet the consumer doesn’t touch the product and examine it

People like bargain to purchase any kind of products. In the internet a buyer cannot do bargain for a certain product.

The average speed of internet in Bangladesh is not good. It is 20 KB at the rate of BDT 1,000.. With this speed a heavy web page is downloaded at three or five minutes.

Implementation of E-Commerce in Bangladesh

E-commerce is a global phenomenon and revolution in the field of trade and commerce. The rising of ecommerce has added a new dimension in the total scheme of business ensuring smarter and faster service in concerned sectors.

The prime objective of e-commerce is to establish a user-friendly, trust-worthy, effective and efficient approach of providing internet centered business transactions. A lot of focus has been given on the technical factors for e-commerce like technical readiness assessment of Bangladesh for implementing e-commerce. Numbers of government and private organizations have accomplished several project based study for technical factor assessment.

The achievement of e-commerce largely depends on the government along with “e”. This overwhelming focus on “e” births the motivation to do the research on the non-technical environment of Bangladesh like political desire, vision and strategy, project management capacity etc. in respect to e-commerce implementation. There are some real lacks of evaluation of non-technical factors that contribute to adopt technology transfer.

The different types of electronic commerce in future

Business-to-business (B2B)

Companies doing business with each other. It helps to shop and purchase from their customer own catalogues. Sales representatives will provide up-to-date information about product. Consumer gets the variety of products and additional information. They also get some advice about their choice. They can negotiate with others and make the decision based on situation and their knowledge. In future ,the customer will get the product receiving benefit in their factory or warehouse. They may put a varanding machine or a output machine in there factory by which ordered items are delivered to the customer in a short time as like as Pepsi, coffee etc.

Business-to-consumer (B2C)

Businesses selling to the general public through catalogs utilizing shopping cart software. Seller serves the business with ultimate consumers. Company build up their websites with more fun, interesting and quick download of pages. Customer wants the clear idea about the products which provides marketer through the use of ecommerce.

Online product catalogue provide consumer additional information. Graphic presentation of products provides real life experience with the capability of zooming on the details. Shopping cart helps customer to exchange the products if necessary.

But the customer face the problem of reciving the order. In future , every building will put a machine like ATM which deliver the order to the ultimate customer by pressing the swich of the button.

Consumer-to-consumer (C2C)

Consumers sell directly to consumers or advertise their items through the internet. They use intranet and other internal networks to advertise items for sale. And they also advertise personal services on the internet about selling knowledge and expertise.Consumers sell wide variety of products to each other.

Consumer-to-business (C2B)

This category includes individuals who sell products or services to organization. An individual provides certain prices to specific products and services.In the future they will provide the requirement in the business websites and get their required order with a limited time.

Intra business E-commerce

Include all internal organizational activities usually performed on intranets that involve exchange of goods, services, or information to employees. It provides high platform for this activities. It also provides support in successful ebusiness area which are human resource management, finance, marketing.

Business-to-employees (B2E)

Do business with the collaboration of employee. Do business not for own interest but for co-interest. They interact with their employee through networking and create good relationship with each other.

M Commerce

It uses with the handheld devices.In the future the size and shape of mobile will be more tiny that looks like only a button .By pressing this button ,a holographic screen will pop-up to the customer and no one can see the screen.All feature and program will improve .They can get all the existing feature like Smartphone Subscriber,3G Subscribers,Mobile Internet Users,Location based services,Mobile coupons,Video (including in video advertising) Music etc.

Peer-to-peer (P2P)

Each individual connected to the network. Peers share their local indexes (or specific fragments of local indexes) by posting meta-information into the P2P network. P2P enabled e-commerce can remove the centralized system and so lessen the possibility of failures. However there are many things that have to be implemented for a P2P system for e-commerce to work – it has to be secure, transactional and workflow-based to track different stages of the sales process. It also has to support detailed search, e-commerce advertisements and location awareness of the peers.

Location Commerce

Geographic Information System.It provides the information about the position of the transportation.It shows the overall position of the transportation and image. So, marketers easily know about their inventory and reduce circle time and eliminate the stock out.DHL and FedEx use tracking option as the location commerce.

Business-to-government

Government is a buyer and seller of goods from and to private sector. Government invites tender and Request for Proposal (REP) from private sector for buying and selling. The government government select the tender and give the order to the business.In future the tender will drop in the web and the order also give to the business via mail. Bangladesh Telephone Company Ltd. (BTCL) are currently offering the facility of downloading bills, submitting REP, and application forms.

Government-to-customer

Government gives information directly to the customers. Now it is easier each citizen has a citizen card. Government will update the customer monthly or quarterly and provide them information via message , email ,internet etc. The customer (citizen) can submit their TAX or charges through internet by ATM card.

Steps to develop the ecommerce in Bangladesh

Bangladesh requires lot of development in ICT sector to implement e-commerce successfully. For a bright future in e-commerce, following tasks should be accomplished at an emergency basis. These steps should be taken by the pioneer business organization of doing business through ecommerce.

The necessaries steps are given in the following:

Improve Infrastructure:

The main infrastructures of e-commerce are telecommunication and internet. Present scenario of them are very worst. So, they require extra care to develop infrastructure. “In developing country like Bangladesh where telephone density is only 5 per 1000 people, other options like mobile phones, wireless communication, nationwide IP backbone, etc. must be seriously considered for growth of this sector. The big gap between the requirement and availability can only be met by opening up this sector fully to the private sector. During the period while the infrastructure is being built cyber cafes, kiosks, telecasters, etc. can be set up all over the country to provide some access to this technology at a reasonable cost.” (Iqbal H. 2007: p. 5).

Campaigning:

The people need to make aware about the benefit of ecommerce, competitive advantage. They have to aware to the benefit of educated.

Educating People:

Most of the people are lived in the village .Internet and computer access for those people is still in difficulty. Most of the people have little of no knowledge about computer and internet. Therefore, Government’s first task would be educating the mass people. A survey conducted Rajshahi University to know the use rate of computer and internet in public universities. “The study finds about 750 PCs at different locations of the university among which 390 (52%) had both LAN access and Internet access (Table 2). The Faculty of Science was again on the top of the list having 120 (30.8%) Internet access PCs, followed by the Faculty of Life and Earth Science 71 (18.2%), computer centre 50 (12.8%), Institutes 40 (10.2%), the Faculty of Social Sciences 37 (9.5%), Business Studies 26 (6.6%), and the Faculty of Arts 13 (3.3%). Ten (2.6%) PCs had Internet access facilities in each of Agriculture Faculty, central library, and administrative building, while only 3 (0.8%) PCs had such facilities in the Faculty of Law.” (Rokunuzzaman M. 2006: p. 90).

International Support:

E-commerce is now a Global phenomenon. It is an accepted technology and changed the Business world. It helps the world community to accomplish works very quickly, efficiently and effectively. So that In Bangladesh, we also need international support to develop the future of e-commerce. The international community can help Bangladesh .

Human Resource:

E-commerce is a major change in the business process for marketing, delivering, and payment for products and services. This new way not only requires business process changes but knowledge and skills in use of Internet, protection of database, security and confidentiality, etc. in computer-based system that is significantly different from traditional way of doing business. In the knowledge-based businesses people need to acquire knowledge and skills. In many cases new people with requisite background will need to be recruited in addition to training existing manpower.” (Iqbal H. 2007: p. 5). So that Government needs to establish training facilities in the district cities . Government also needs to provide scholarship facilities to students and give credit facilities to the new e-commerce entrepreneurs. These steps would help to build a skilled work force.

Regulatory and Legal Environment:

To keep pase with the modern world of technology, Bangladesh needs to develop a regulatory framework to secure the private and public sector’s interest.The regulatory and legal environment affecting trade and commerce will influence e-commerce development. These include institutional and policy directives and implementation capability ,and constraints relating to combination of the Internet and flows of goods and services. “Bangladesh government has made some efforts in establishing a regulatory framework for transactions over electronic media. A committee has been set up to draft cyber law about a year back but no appreciable progress has been made.” (Iqbal H. 2007: p. 5).

Conclusion

Internet enhances the market integration in developing countries. In fact as the internet evolves and consumer behavior patterns change, the demand for ecommerce is only going to increase further. The current growth in Internet sales is only the foundation for more glorious days in future.

Developing e-commerce and e-governance; a developing country can become modernized if it can extensively apply IT to enhance productivity and international competitiveness.An information-based society or knowledge based society is composed of IT products, IT applications in society and economy as a whole. Many countries in Asia are taking advantage of e-commerce through opening of economies, which is essential for promoting competition and diffusion of Internet technologies.