F-Commerce refers to online business through the Facebook platform using page & ID. Whereas we are already familiar with eCommerce business which indicates buying & selling products or services online. Since the internet started eCommerce & f-commerce have become more and more popular over time. During this Covid period, the buy & sell rise was dramatic.
Rise of F-commerce
F-commerce is the latest type of eCommerce popular among youth entrepreneurs and customers. Since Covid started most business entrepreneurs facing challenges in their business. Staying at home slowed down the physical shop business. While it has become an opportunity for entrepreneurs to sell products on social media platforms. People already knew about eCommerce.
Meanwhile, Facebook is one of the most popular social media platforms in the world and most used in Bangladesh. The subscriber of Facebook was 39 million in 2020 in Bangladesh as per Statista. Where the market size of f-commerce was about 312 crore in Bangladesh says The IDLC business review in 2019. Also in 2019, about 300,000 Bangladeshi stores were running on Facebook. While women were them in percentage.
Therefore it’s a huge arena that has been taken by entrepreneurs to spread their business. Traditional physical stores targeted Facebook to reach out to their customer.
As most of the customers are staying at home & familiar with f-commerce so the response was more than enough. Specifically, the young generation spends a long time on this platform.
Despite of benefit there are also drawback of this platform too. A few of cheat people receive money as a seller but don’t deliver the product to the customer. Another group deliver cheap or faulty products to their customer.
Ecommerce Revolution
Already we know that eCommerce sales increase dramatically during Covid-19. The share of total retail sales increases from 16% to 19% in 2020 according to UNCTAD. Specifically, Shopify gains 95.6% and Walmart 72.4%. In terms of business to consumer GMV of the top 13 companies reach $2.9 trillion in 2020.
B2B e-commerce in 2019 was $21.8 trillion, which is the majority amount among all other types of e-commerce. Where B2C e-commerce sales were close to $4.9 trillion in 2019, and the amount is 11% over than 2018. While China, the USA, and the UK remained the top three.
At the same time across the border, B2C reached $440 billion in 2019, which is 9% more than 2018. While sharing of this type increase by 5% in 2019 than 2017.
According to E-cab, overall eCommerce business transactions were TK 7000 crore in 2020. In the meantime, f-commerce contributed about TK 1,000 crore. Compare to the previous period online sales increased close to 80%.
Compare to traditional commerce, eCommerce made it easier to get potential customers, increase research, improve communication, track finances, and improve a brand at a low cost. Before eCommerce age, the customer of the business was local and domestic. But eCommerce increase the opportunity to reach out to the global market.
Even it made a brand’s product visible 24/7 to the customer all over the world within too low cost than traditional stores. F-commerce goes the same.
Conclusion
Ecommerce and F-commerce is rising at faster pace. Which increase interest of regular commerce entrepreneur towards online. Even some of them already come up with their online store to expand their brand and reach out potential customer.
