With the development of IT sector in Pakistan people are exploring new horizons and expanding their businesses. The e-commerce buzzword had taken the world by surprise and now our country is also catching up e-commerce market with leaps and bounds.

Our trading is no more limited to credit or debit cards only. Rather commerce or e-commerce has widened to online buying and selling. Interfacing of websites with bank accounts, securing electronic payments through credit and debit cards, Business-to-Business activities for manufacturers and traders, online equivalents of the retail outlets, tracking inventories electronically, automated purchasing, lowering expenses, enabling individuals the freedom to work, enabling a firm or individual to conduct business over an electronic network are all owe to technology.

Every business is incomplete without e-commerce either it is on a small scale or a big one. Thousands of Pakistani entrepreneurs are doing online business by paying a nominal amount and earning huge profits. So when it comes to the bottom line, it is the technology which is making a difference and creating value to the businesses of people and giving them a global perspective by widening business boundaries.

Small businessmen and entrepreneurs are taking great advantage of the technology in our country and getting amazing results in the given circumstances. Pakistan is no doubt has a wonderful workforce and intelligent brains which will prove their mettle in the world in the days to come. The youngsters are on the go and are willing to win the world with their great notions of conducting business. Because of technology and online access to everything many of the youngsters don’t have the aptitude to do 9 to 5 jobs, so they are taking e-commerce a great opportunity and have achieved smashing success in many fields. According to many online surveys most of the people especially in the large cities are very much comfortable to use ATM instead of writing a cheque. They prefer online transaction which is convenient and time-saving as well instead of going to bank physically.

People have embraced e-commerce. Hundreds of retailers, ranging from clothing outlets to electronic equipment stores, are now using websites to sell goods to customers. The emergence of several online marketplaces, such as Daraz.pk, PakWheels and OLX Pakistan, has made it easier for retailers to sell goods on the web. At the same time, a number of new online businesses have also propped up.

Similarly there are many businesses which are online but doing business equal to their retail outlets. For example, buying online tickets for airline, train, sports or musical events etc is more convenient for people than to visit their respective outlets. Mobile phone top-up can be obtained at ATM machines. These are all the examples that how technology has penetrated to grass root level.

Many banks and telecom companies have launched branchless banking and m-commerce initiatives ranging from MCB Banks’s MCBLite, Telenor’s Easy Paisa, Mobilink’s Mobicash, Zong and Askari Bank’s Timepay, UBL’s Netbanking and others. The number of branchless banking agents are examples how technology has given boom to ecommerce in Pakistan.

Fashion industry flourished in our country in recent years. This industry witnessed a boom because of social media especially through facebook marketing. All the designers market their collections through facebook and instagram. People are becoming less interested in publishing their ads in print media. They prefer to market their products through social media. Social media commerce is catching up and even lots of individuals are promoting their business through this mode instead of only through traditional websites.

Online purchases are paid for through COD at the time the parcel is delivered to customer. All major courier companies are providing COD delivery services across over 150 cities in the country. This becomes especially relevant when considering that approximately 35% of the country’s monthly 70,000 COD shipments are delivered to cities outside the three main urban centers of Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad. This implies a huge untapped segment of the population that will increasingly transition to online shopping. There are countless food chains in all the major cities of the country which are doing their business online by delivering the orders of the customers at their door step.

According to central bank of Pakistan reports the number of registered e-commerce merchants is increasing with the passage of time. Economic experts forecast that Pakistan’s e-commerce sales are projected to cross the one billion dollars mark by 2020 as compared to $622 million recorded in 2017. Moving forward, as our economy expands and internet penetration grows, the country will likely witness a surge in e-commerce activity.