Pakistan, a late entrant to the world of e-commerce, has emerged and shown a reasonable rise in online shopping trends and other e-commerce businesses. These growth trends over the past few years with more than US$ 30 million being spent on online purchases depicts a highly positive picture for future. The size of Pakistan's e-commerce market is expected to reach over US$ 600 million by the end of this year. E-commerce industry is booming throughout the region including China where ecommerce website like Alibaba's market capitalization estimated to be over US$ 250 billion.With many new online ventures springing up rapidly and existing businesses recording unprecedented growth rates, there is still a lot that needs to be done to reach the true e-commerce potential of the country and compete with other big players of the region.
One of the most important factors in equation is rate of internet penetration in Pakistan. Pakistan's internet enabled population is limited to around 40 million users roughly. This, however, is expected to rise up to 56 million users by 2019. The rise in online shopping and transactions is also linked to the launch of 3G and 4G services in Pakistan. Pakistan's entry into 3G and LTE services in 2014 has increased internet accessibility and currently propelling the growth of online purchases. Rise in quality and use of broadband is another contributor to the growth of E-Commerce in Pakistan. Over the next 5 years, 28 per cent of the country's population is estimated to have internet access. With increased access to the internet and social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook, marketing trends are also rapidly changing and transforming the way opinions are now being shaped. This is transforming the Online shopping trends in Pakistan and also significantly impacting several other E-commerce arenas, such as online job hunts, land, property and rental transactions.
Similarly, along with increased internet penetration, 67 per cent of the entire population also have access to mobile phones. There is also a recent surge in smartphone usage which is increasing day by day. Internet-enabled smartphones have dramatically increased the ease of internet access and made online businesses much more accessible for all. Both the rise of internet and the declining costs of smartphones have accounted for this rapid rise in smartphone usage in Pakistan. With such easy access to the internet E-commerce trends in the country are expected to boom in the near future. Even still Cash-on-Delivery (COD) payment methods continue to remain very popular in Pakistan and more than 95 per cent of online purchases are dependent on them, other promising initiatives such as branchless banking and Inter Bank Fund Transfer (IBFT) are also becoming popular among masses.
Commercial banks and Telecom operators have already introduced the concept of branchless banking, and the number of branchless banking agents facilitating offline payments for online purchases and making it much more convenient to transfer money in a secure environment. Use of Plastic money, i.e credit and debit cards has also enabled the Online merchants a greater access to merchant accounts that enable them to collect payments electronically via, more than 12 million, debit cards in circulation in Pakistan.
With more and more banks offering consumers internet banking payment facilities, a vast volume of payments are made through IBFT which enables consumers to electronically transfer funds directly from their online bank accounts to online stores. Recently Chief Executive Officer of world's famous and one of the top E-Commerce company E-Bay has termed Pakistan among the fastest growing E-Commerce markets in the world. This is a good sign for the E-Commerce industry in Pakistan. The journey of growth has started and surely Pakistan's E-Commerce sector is growing day by day.
