The E-Commerce industry has a predominant contribution to Pakistan's GDP with a worldwide growth rate of 13%, and it is escalating with a phenomenal strategy of making lives easy. The new markets in e-commerce are emerging, whereas existing markets are innovating themselves to grow.
While contemplating the fact of growth, two intellectual minds identified and mentioned the gap in Pakistan's e-commerce industry. These two Pakistanis, Mr Muhammad Bilal Jamil, and Mr Syed Ali Abbas Haider Naqvi, ascertained the high potential in the e-commerce industry. They affirmed that it is not reviving due to the misfortunes in online shopping such as the issues regarding counterfeit products, delayed deliveries, inaccurate product listing, lack of after-sale service.
These GIKI graduates during the university life, spend their four years in rural area and faced tremendous shopping issues and it leads to finding the solution for e-commerce (online shopping), simultaneously turned out to be the mission of their lives. In the second year of their bachelor's electrical engineering life, they started to think about the resolution of these problems to create an impact on e-commerce in Pakistan. After their consistent determination and struggle of almost three years, their idea of developing a real-time shopping search engine has been executed successfully that also helps people locate nearby online stores during lockdown, so they could get their desire product, fastest and cheapest. It was also covered massively by Pakistan’s mainstream media.
It is an honor for our country that two fresh minds persistently work hard to boost the e-commerce industry of Pakistan and contribute their part as a true patriot. While facing societal and family pressure, they stayed determined and pursued their startup careers by developing the first real-time online shopping search engine "Shoppingum," which runs successfully. And also develops a fashion platform "Fashionista” by using Artificial Intelligence (AI), they use the technology in the premier way to boost e-commerce.
These e-commerce enthusiasts knowing the actual frustration of people focuses on the issues from both ends either from the buyer's side or the seller's side in online shopping. They tried to resolve these from both ends and are still focusing on improving Pakistan's e-commerce industry.
To revamp the e-commerce industry in Pakistan, the passion and the vision of these developers are strong. The current mission to revolutionize the e-commerce industry and passion can be explained by the fact that the CEO of the e-commerce platforms “Shoppingum”, Mr Bilal Jamil, did not avail the multiple opportunity of the job. It was from a well-known software houses of Pakistan; after graduation and he stayed focused on his startup. He enthusiastically learned computer programming, all e-commerce trades, from macro to micro, yet the most ignored problems in e-commerce, spotted the pain point of the consumers and also handled all the technical work, alongside. He dedicated his last three Academic years at GIK, pursuing his passion and unknowingly, becomes the Master of all e-commerce trades.
However, the e-commerce enthusiast, Mr Syed Ali's story, depicts a genuine motivation to follow the passion which he has for e-commerce. He also rejects a high-level job opportunity offered by Daraz.pk and sensibly worked hard to boost Pakistan's e-commerce industry.
Being a CO-Founder of an e-commerce startup, Mr Ali, is now working in almost all domains of their startup as he started to learn e-commerce since academic life. He is a social media marketing expert, has a high command on SEO, brings about hundreds of thousands of organic hits on Shoppingum in 3 to 4 months by applying business strategies. And he also brought hundred thousand followers on social media platforms by his business marketing strategies.
The struggle is real, but the challenges and hurdles are ahead to come. The future is not what we can accurately predict, but affirmative determination can lead to future success. They learned new traits, during the current economic crisis, these people manage to grow e-commerce through their platform. But the economic-financial crisis may affect them to grow due to the current debt-riddled economic conditions. However, they are following the strategic direction and achieving their milestones to boost e-commerce of Pakistan.
The worldwide market of e-commerce is very dynamic, and the focus of these two is to expand its startup across the international borders in the future. The goal is to create thousands of jobs for Pakistanis in the e-commerce industry in the upcoming years. Currently, they have few employees who are motivated and dedicated to their work and contribute to improving the e-commerce industry of Pakistan. All they aim to take the e-commerce industry of Pakistan to a successful high level. And the plans are clear to flourish their e-commerce startup like Amazon.