A deshi e-Bidding ground

Being a Bangladeshi version of the world famous Amazon and e-bay, the site has already become quite popular since its inception in September 2004. At present the site has over 1000 registered members. Free membership to the site will be allowed for at least a year, according to Kazi Khurram Ahmed, Chief Executive Officer of the site. "We are planning not to take any charges for sale of items at the site from the first 500 sellers," said Khurram.

In order to sell or buy an item or product from the site, a user needs to register. The instruction for registration has been extensively explained both in Bangla and English at the site. The site is quite user-friendly with illustrated menu and clearly listed categories of items.

The current categories of sale are computer accessories, mobile phones, electronics, furniture, cars, motorbikes, books, watches, jewelry and real estate.

An item can be sold in any one of three following ways: fixed pricing method, auction method and mixed method. Fixed method is for those sellers, who do not want to bargain about the price.

"Currently auction method is very popular at the site, as there is always a chance that the ending price may as well be a lot more higher than the actual costing price of the product," said Ahmed. Mixed method is a mixture of both the auction and fixed price methods.

According to the Khurram, very recently a laptop was auctioned at the site at a starting bid of Tk. 1. The demand for the item skyrocketed and was finally sold at a price of Tk. 45,000.

"Such incidents prove that such sites has high potential in the Bangladeshi market given the time and effort," said Ahmed.

"We would probably be adding more features like forums and polls but there are currently no plans to change the existing transaction methods in the site," said Ahmed, when asked about future plans for the site.

He also pointed out that as a professional UK based company is administering the software system of the entire site, the maintenance and the professionalism behind the site is constantly ensured, unlike most other Bangladeshi sites.

"Bangladesh is still at its infant stage as far as E-commerce is concerned and it can only flourish with the increasing number of internet users and the collective buying power of the population," commented Ahmed, when asked about the current Bangladeshi E-commerce scenario.

He also pointed out the important role that the Government has to play by providing legal and technical support to information and communication technologies by establishing and carrying out laws on Intellectual Property Rights, Hacking and other such issues.