ISLAMABAD: Experts on Thursday said that 5 million ‘Micro-Entrepreneurs’ in the country to benefit from E-commerce and Digital Skills for connecting local businesses with global chain.
Extreme Commerce and Dukan.pk collaborated to empower people to achieve self-sufficiency through e-commerce and digital skills, said a press release issued here.
Extreme Commerce’s Founder and CEO, Sunny Ali said, “It is heartening to see the emergence of local platforms like Dukan.pk to help sellers reach their customers. We are proud to partner with the leader in this space.”
He further said, “this partnership will allow anyone with a Smartphone to gain e-commerce selling skills and equip them with easy-to-use technology, enabling web store creation, online payments, and delivery management.”
There are currently over 5 Million micro and small enterprises (MSMEs) in Pakistan that are eager to join the e-commerce revolution but lack the technical know-how, he said.
Although Pakistan ranks at 72 among 190 countries on starting a business on the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business Report 2020, the new dynamics demand a new approach for the micro, small and medium enterprises, he said.
He said this gap has been filled by the two leading enterprises in Pakistan by joining hands, with a common goal of empowering the people of Pakistan to achieve self-sufficiency through e-commerce and digital skills, Dukan.pk has partnered with Extreme Commerce to help local businesses sell online.
Extreme Commerce is the largest online selling community of Pakistan with approximately 700, 000 members, he said.
He said that it has trained and helped thousands of people to sell online in the ecommerce platform and generate over $100 million in sales through Amazon, eBay, and other platforms.
He said the partnership will look into the possibilities to capacitate businesses for online payments as well.
72.29 percent enterprises in Pakistan reported cash as the major payment method.
59.74 percent Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in Pakistan reported bank transfer method, 24.24 percent used personal cheque to make payments, 22.08 percent online payment method, 13.85 percent debit or credit cards, 6.49 percent money orders, and 4.33 percent used mobile payment methods.
The government plans to digitize cash on delivery (CoD) payments above PKR 10000 by the year 2022, and all CoD payments will be replaced with online payments by the year 2029.
Monis Rahman, founder and CEO of Dukan.pk, while reiterating his commitment to uplift small local businesses said, “Dukan’s mission is to let anyone with a smartphone sell online in less than one minute. Our partnership with Extreme Commerce will help accelerate this mission by complementing our platform with high quality e-commerce training for local sellers.”
He said that Pakistan has an approx. 3.2 million SMEs. SMEs constitute nearly 90 percent of all the enterprises in Pakistan; employ 80 percent of the non-agricultural labour force; and their share in the annual GDP is 40 percent, approximately, he added.
However, unlike large enterprises in the formal sector, a small and medium enterprise is constrained by financial and other resources.
He said this inherent characteristic of an SME makes it imperative that there should be a mechanism through which it may get support in different functions of business including technical upgradation, marketing, financial and human resource training and development.
Monis Rahman said that to build a knowledge platform that can enable new thinking and innovation for the SME E Commerce approach, Extreme Commerce has already signed an agreement with the Small and Medium Enterprise Development Authority (SMEDA) as well
Extreme Commerce is also working with academic and research institutions across Pakistan and beyond, he said
Dukan.pk is a new revolutionary and free of cost E-Commerce App, he added. Founder and CEO of Dukan.pk said through this each store will get its own personalized URL.
There are 9 different payment methods with hassle-free stock purchase, sales report, inventory management and order history.
Led by a team of industry veterans, Dukan has been able to create over 40, 000 online stores, growing 350% monthly by average.
“We estimate that by 2025, our community will be 1 million strong, generating well over $1 billion in inward remittance for Pakistan.”