With around 80 million internet users, the Bangladeshi eCommerce industry has grown by 200% over the last few years. However, the marginal producers and consumers from rural areas often get deprived of experiencing the country’s rising eCommerce industry due to a lack of eCommerce literacy and eCommerce infrastructure to rural areas. The “ekShop” initiative offers a platform for rural producers and sellers to sell their products through the integrated eCommerce companies and logistics providers. Through ekShop’s platform, marginal and rural producers have been able to spread their goods - with the standard price - to the last mile and urban consumer. This has facilitated a nation-wide supply chain, wherein products made by the rural population are circulating all over the country; products from urban communities are also reaching them. The platform connects all the top eCommerce companies, logistic providers, payment gateways to unions, districts, sub-districts, and divisions, utilizing the 5293 digital centers. With the assistance of 10,000 entrepreneurs and 500 micro-merchants, it has directly become a marketplace of over 1 million goods. ekShop is gradually reducing the digital divide and increase their income. ekShop has crossed international borders to Nepal, Malaysia, and Singapore to reach the NRBs there.

http://ekshop.gov.bd/

• Bangladesh

• Youth
• Women
• The unemployed
• The poor
• Remote and rural communities

This initiative is based on the idea of making eCommerce platforms as available and easy to access as possible. Hence it does not require complex project design and a huge amount of investment. The idea is easily replicable in other areas and countries where eCommerce is a booming industry and internet connectivity is good.

a2i has taken ownership of the initiative and it will maintain it on an ongoing basis. A revenue eco-system where every related stakeholder has commissioned from every order. That is why it is sustainable for them and ekShop as well. Furthermore, it is made where all the connected commission flows may not have to depend on any external sources to run its operation. The increasing number of registered entrepreneurs in ekShop shows the necessity of this assisted e-commerce system.

ekShop is committed to building a development-oriented eCommerce ecosystem, where rural sellers can access, utilize and use the country’s burgeoning eCommerce industry to sell their products. It is enabling individuals, sellers and producers to achieve a sustainable income, furthering their development and improving their quality of life. ekShop leverages the use of ICTs and acknowledges that the development of ICTs provides enormous opportunities for women, who should be an integral part of and key actors in society. Women of the rural communities are in possession of unique talents. Hence, the platform and initiatives enable women's empowerment and their full participation on the basis of equality in all spheres of society and in all decision-making processes. To this end, we should mainstream a gender equality perspective and use ICTs as a tool to that end. ekShop pays particular attention to the special needs of marginalized and vulnerable groups of society, particularly unemployed and underprivileged people. The platform strives to empower the poor, particularly those living in remote, rural and marginalized urban areas, by providing them access to eCommerce platforms and selling their hard-worked products. Furthermore, it also gives them access to all the necessary knowledge and teaches them how to use ICTs as a tool to support their efforts to lift themselves out of poverty. This eCommerce platform is resolute in it’s quest to ensure that everyone can benefit from the opportunities that ICTs can offer. a2i, and by that extension ekShop, aims to improve access to information and communication infrastructure and technologies as well as to information and knowledge; build capacity; increase confidence and security in the use of ICTs; create an enabling environment at all levels; develop and widen ICT applications; and encourage international and regional cooperation. We agree that these are the key principles for building an eCommerce ecosystem.