President of Pakistan Businessmen and Intellectuals Forum (PBIF), Mian Zahid Hussain, has proposed that State Bank should take measures to introduce PayPal services in Pakistan to benefit the entrepreneurs associated with e-commerce. "The small investors especially women entrepreneurs can grab the opportunity of making handsome profits through e-commerce platform," he said, adding tat skilled women can sale the handmade products and make handsome earnings.
Mian Zahid said that various goods and services can be bought/availed online in Pakistan, including vehicles, property, food products, electronics appliances, job search and cab service, etc. He said there is huge potential of e-commerce in Pakistan which has 150 million mobile phone subscribers with 56 million broadband users, 18 million smart phone users and 21 percent internet users. He said logistics support to e-commerce is being provided by worthy names, including Pakistan Post, TCS, Leopard courier, etc., which provide delivery services to the online buyers.
"Legislative support is also there to protect e-commerce users and secure platforms are available to ensure safety of the sensitive and financial data of online buyers," he said. The PBIF president noted that India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh are far ahead from Pakistan in e-commerce with $35 billion, $3.5 billion and $1 billion, respectively. He said that e-commerce is being promoted in Pakistan owing to increased use of internet, smart phone and broadband.
He said that currently, the e-commerce has benefited retail business but keeping the rising trend of online business in mind, it is expected that the business-to-business online activities would be promoted, accordingly. "The e-commerce is expected to grow further by 25 percent in the coming years of 2019 and 2020, respectively," he said.
Mian Zahid noted that unlike traditional businesses, the e-commerce provides a unique platform that widely benefits customers at their doorstep with several attractions, including saving of time, fuel and travelling cost. He said that on the other hand, the business can easily communicate to customers online in addition to save the utilities and various expenses unavoidable in traditional setup and also save the cost of doing business.