Islamabad - After getting a good response for selling Valentine gifts online last year, this year many of the online stores have dedicated a separate category for the Valentine’s Day shoppers, as there are more than 30 million Internet users in the country.
Since 2000 many online stores have emerged. During the last couple of years, these stores have started displaying specialised items for festivals and other events. Valentine’s Day is among the festivals which have grabbed the attention of online entrepreneurs.
“We are doing online business for the last ten years. Initially we had a thin database of customers buying valentines gifts, but for the last couple of years, more and more customers have been buying online gifts for Valentine’s Day,” said Sohail Ahmed of emarkaz.com. He said most of their clients were oversees Pakistanis but now locals were also buying online.
Though Internet penetration in Pakistan is just above 10 percent of its total population, fast internet connections, especially 3G and 4G, are providing easy internet access to more and more customers on their fingertips everyday.
Experts believe E-commerce is at the early stages of development in Pakistan and connectivity share falls significantly behind other countries of its income group in Asia-Pacific. However, as the number of internet users grows, with young consumers accounting for over 60% of web connected individuals, they are beginning to grasp the benefits of online shopping.
Either these are social or cultural barriers, which discourage imported festivals, or simply the ease of buying that online stores are receiving more and more orders.
Express Gift Service, tohfay, kishmish, kaymu, buyon, savours are the websites which have dedicated categories for valentine shoppers. They offer flowers, perfumes, cakes, sweets, valentine mugs, valentine bears, and other bundle gifts.
But despite all this growth, some businessmen still hesitate to do business locally.
“It is true that online business is gaining popularity but we still don’t target Pakistani customers for our imported flowers business,” said Hassan, an official of Eflorist.pk. Established in 2013, his website is selling imported flowers online but its customers are foreigners or overseas Pakistanis.
On his store, Valentine love bouquet of red roses cost $44.95, whereas the price of red radiance bouquet is $59.95.
He said his company is selling perishable items, and the virtual store customers only pay cash on delivery. “We can’t afford to send imported flowers to someone and if he refuses to accept, our costly flowers would be perished,” he explained.
On the other hand, there are dozens of flower sellers, who have now joined virtual community and are selling Valentine flowers online. “The courier services are also offering valentine gifts but customers prefer us because they know we are professionals. The people know we would provide them quality product at cheap rates,” Abbas Nasir, one of the flower shopkeepers with an online store, said.
“Sending online flowers to any of my class fellow is easy through online store. One can remain anonymous and still can send the message,” Asad Toor, a university student said. However, he was concerned about the quality of the stuff which online stores deliver.
“I ordered a pack of valentine gift including one card, Ferrero Rocher chocolate box, an artificial necklace, eye-shadow palette and a make-up kit at one of the online stores (kaymu). It cost me Rs 3,000 but when my friend received it and showed it to me, its market price was not more then Rs 1,500,” Toor claimed.
Online store owners admit that their prices might be slightly high but they argue that online stores save customers from spending on fuel and save time. “Online shopping is in its initial stages, the prices would be competitive once business volume increases, plus you would find online shopping cheap if you add services cost to it,” said Sardar Ahmed, an entrepreneur.