E-Commerce (Problems and Prospects of E-Commerce in Bangladesh) (Research Proposal)/Thesis-Dissertation

 

Problems and Prospects of E-Commerce in Bangladesh

Introduction

1.0 Introduction

People had no idea before 2020 that they have to lockdown at own home for a long time without doing any crime. People were busy with their life. They work hard from day to night still in off day. They were going to market for buying foods and going to the shopping mall for buying clothes and other accessories. Sometimes they felt tired. So that someone thought how it will be if people can buy from home. The perfect solution to this problem is E-commerce (Mohiuddin, 2014). This buying and selling system through online helps now during world lockdown time mostly. But unfortunately, there are some problems with e-commerce in Bangladesh. So this report will disclose the problems and prospects of the e-commerce system in Bangladesh.

1.1 Background of the study:

E-commerce is an online-based buying and selling process (Manzoor, 2010). Broadly it is being classified into four categories such as business to business (B2B) as bizbangladesh.com, business to consumer (B2C) as daraz.com, consumer to consumer (C2C) as bikroy.com and business to government (B2G) (Levy, 2019). Apart from these websites, there are so more online trade is occurring in Bangladesh by using social media.     

A present time there are more than 35000 individuals and more than 25000 small and mediums enterprise are part of this sector. The statistics expect that it would be equal to BDT 70 billion by 2021 (khan, 2020).   

But unfortunately, this sector faces some problems such as low-speed net, parcel delivery logistics and supply chain issues. Most of the site in Bangladesh takes up to 72 hours to deliver the product at the destination while Amazon offers in the USA 1 hour service and 24 hours service (khan, 2020).

1.2 Problem statement:

Are there any problems in e-commerce business in Bangladesh?

1.3 Objectives:

Primary objectives: It will be known here what are the problems are facing all stakeholder of the e-commerce sector in Bangladesh.

Secondary objectives:

1. To know how this issue such delivery time, payment method, communication barrier and products quality that affects this sector.

2. To know what is the best solution to these problems that are being faced by the stakeholder.

The rationale of the study:

It has already stated that this sector is an emerging business in Bangladesh. It saves time and but it fails to support during the emergency of products or service. Sometime it could not maintain the order from the consumer. Most of the time these organization takes huge time and sometimes they cheat with a customer. So the customer is being dissatisfied for these reasons. So the author is being motivated here to know the actual problem of this sector.

Scope of the study:

The author will mainly focus on the e-commerce site in Bangladesh. E-commerce is related to e-transaction processing also. So the author will also study about e-transaction system of Bangladesh.

Limitation of the study:

A limitation is everywhere. So the author will be faced a few limitations here also. Firstly, time is the main limitation. Secondly, world lockdown is an unavoidable limitation. Thirdly, the cost is another limitation to conduct research. There will be more difficulties may be raised.         

Literature review

2.0 E-commerce:

E-commerce in full form is as electronic commerce. It is also known as internet commerce (Combe, 2012). It means buying or selling goods or services through the internet and also paying money by the online system (Levy, 2019). People understand that e-commerce is related to selling physical products but it also sells service online. But there is a difference between e-commerce and e-business (Manzoor, 2010). E-business indicates that all the activities of a business are operating online. But e-commerce refers only to selling and buying activities.

2.1 History of e-commerce:

It was not ancient, it was recent. On 11^th August 1994, a man sold a CD in America to his friend through a website (NETMARKET). It was the root of e-commerce and its fruit is Amazon, Alibaba, eBay and so more local and international sites (Levy, 2019).

2.2 Types of E-commerce:

There are mainly four types of e-commerce systems are available in the market. These are as follows.

Business to consumer (B2C): This is a system of online selling and buying when a business sells product and services to an individual consumer (Levy, 2019). In this process, the business offers its product at an online market platform where the buyer chooses the product and order. Then the seller places the product to the door of consumer and takes prices by online or cash on delivery. International examples are Amazon, Walmart and local examples are Daraz.com, chaldal.com and so on (Mohiuddin, 2014).

Business to business (B2B): It is a process of delivering goods and services from the stock of business organization to the door of another business organization by taking the order through online (Manzoor, 2010). The most popular site of B2B at the international market is Alibaba.com. The national market place is bizbangladesh.com (Mohiuddin, 2014). Alibaba.com is much popular after Amazon in the world market. It is also important here that it deals with a huge amount so most of the time transaction has occurred through the banking channel.

Consumer to business (C2B): It is more likely opposite to B2C. Here consumer sells well to the business. Here consumer prepares the goods or services and sells it to business then business sells it to the other consumer through an online marketplace (Levy, 2019). eBay and Gazelle are the most important example here for C2B.

Consumer to Consumer: Another popular way of e-commerce where the consumer sells their product or service to another consumer. It is a popular way in Bangladesh. Bikroy.com is most popular form here (Manzoor, 2010). eBay is an internationally popular C2C way of e-commerce. But it mere facilitate the core buyer of e-commerce.

Above ways of e-commerce are helping this generation to take advantage of using the internet. It increases the business as well as it decreases the stress of human. B2C is saving the time of the consumer. B2B is decreasing the process of buying or sourcing goods. C2C is helping the consumer to sell their old product at a good price and those poor customers can use a product. Finally, e-commerce is not only a source of business rather it also helps the human being several ways.

But still, this sector in Bangladesh is facing some obstacle that affects the business. Some factors are like as below.

Delivery time: It is the most important fact here. Because a consumer can buy a product from a market through 3 to 4 hours. But most of the online site in Bangladesh wants more average 48 hours and few want 72 hours and more (Mohiuddin, 2014). Sometimes it decreases the interest to the mind of consumer about e-commerce. It is huge time they have taken by comparing with amazon and so more international brand.

Payment method: It is another part of e-commerce. Some scholar says that it is the half part of e-commerce because of there is nothing free. So a transaction will be completed when the full payment has been made (Mohiuddin, 2014). There are mainly two types of payment. These are prepaid by using banking tools such as debit/credit card and post-paid such as cash on delivery. But unfortunately few suppliers take the path of cheating by taking the prepaid bill from a customer or they provide the wrong product. In some time, customer declines the order after placing their home. So that perfect payment method is an unavailable here.

Communication barrier: Another obstacle of e-commerce in Bangladesh. There are 73.9% of people are literate in Bangladesh. But still many people have no idea about how to operate a smartphone. So they face a barrier during the order of a product. They feel better to go physical market rather virtual. So they avoid e-commerce. It is being also found that so many companies are using social media where old age people have less idea about it. So there are communication gaps between these types of people (Mohiuddin, 2014).

Product quality: People buys the product from the virtual market without any touch. So they could not understand the quality until it delivers. But the problem is here. When they order by observing a product from a website they think the quality and set in mind. But most of the times they are facing this obstacle such as image was something and product is another thing (Mohiuddin, 2014). In this regard, they are hopeless with this product and there is no chance of them to reject it. So they are losing hope from e-commerce and they go to the offline or physical market at next time. Sometime supplier also sends the outdated product.

Above problems are being found most of the time in this sector. But this sector has a huge opportunity to grow and get facilities from them in this lockdown time. So the business organization should be concerned about this problem. There are so many delivery agencies are available such as PATHAO, SA PARIBAHAN, and so on. So the supplier needs to talk with them and find out a perfect solution to decrease the delivery time. They also can use audio and video system to track the quality of the product and return policy. Finally, they need to think about perfect payment pethood. They can charge delivery cost at least from buy at advanced and then they place the product at the door of the buyer.  

Methodology

 

Research needs a perfect plan where the methodology is a process of forecasting. So it will be discussed here how data will be collected from where and whom. It will be illustrated how these collected data will be analyzed and finally, it will be presented.

3.1 types of research: Research has been conducted to find out the cause of the problem and its solution. It has done mainly in two ways and these are quantitative and qualitative (Mohiuddin, 2014).

3.1.1 Quantitative research: Quantitative research has done based on the number. The researcher uses the number to express the result. It follows mainly statistical tools (Mohiuddin, 2014).

3.1.2 Qualitative research: It is another way of finding the causes of problems and its perfect solution. The author here expresses the result based text values.

This report will be quantitative research where the author will use a questionnaire to find out the cause of the problem and their solution.

3.2 Source of data: Data is the key to finding the cause of the problem and its solution. These data are being collected from two sources. These are as follows.

Primary data: The most important data is the primary data. Because of this type of data are being collected directly from the respondent (Combe, 2012).

A secondary source of data: The author will also collect some data from books, magazine and newspaper and websites (Combe, 2012).

3.3 Size of data: It is not possible to collect population data. So the author will collect sample data from 100 respondents.

3.4 Analysing tools: These data will be analysed by using MS excel to find out mean, SD, co-relation.

3.5 Research framework:

3.6 Grant chart:

Grant Chart		Week 1							Week 2							Week 3							Week 4
SL	Activities	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
1	Finding a research area
2	Finding research objectives
3	Preparing literature review
4	Selection of the method of data collection
5	Collecting the primary data and secondary data
6	Data analysis
7	Reaching a conclusion

 

Conclusion

E-commerce is an important solution for saving time and energy of human where they were busy to buy the product from the market. But now they can buy grocery to dress, electronics and so more. It is being possible for a new era of the internet. It will be growing more and more as stated by (Combe, 2012) But there are some problems in Bangladesh at e-commerce sector where people faces low quality of the product, long delivery time, payment problem (Mohiuddin, 2014). So the author has found out this research area to know what the main causes of the problem area and what will be the solution. This research will be quantitative so data will be collected from primary sources. Finally, these collected data will be analysed by using MS Excel and presented in a report format.

 

References:

Combe, 2012. Introduction to e-Business. Routledge.

khan, S., 2020. The Financial express. [Online] Available at: https://thefinancialexpress.com.bd/views/views/e-commerce-in-bangladesh-where-are-we-headed-1578666791 [Accessed 12 May 2020].

Levy, A., 2019. The motley fool. [Online] Available at: https://www.fool.com/investing/the-7-largest-e-commerce-companies-in-the-world.aspx [Accessed 13 may 2020].

Manzoor, 2010. E-commerce. In E-Commerce: An Introduction. Panama City: Amir Manzoor. pp.110-17.

Mohiuddin, 2014. Overview the E-Commerce in Bangladesh. Journal of Business and Management, 16(7), pp.01-06.