“He needs to convince himself always that he is helping an individual by telling him about his product or service. Even he needs to sell himself until he feels sorry for anyone who does not have his products or services. He also needs to realize that a person may not have enough time to shop physically.” These feels may encourage a person to be an entrepreneur in “Non-store retailing” sector. ‘Non-store retailing’ is one of the most effective ways to reach the mass customer. Producers may get the chance to offer the wide variety of product/service to the customers to attain the core of marketing – Consumer satisfaction. From the customers’ view point it saves time. While the most parts of the Global Village are extremely inspired by the Non-store retail business at consumer market to save their time nevertheless in Bangladesh we are still slow in practice. Despite having the mutual benefits, why so? The question may arise. Some reasons are playing vital role to de-motivate the Non-store retail business in Bangladesh.
One of the forms of Non-store retail business, Distance Selling, has not gained prominence is that the Bangladeshis prefer to touch the products physically before buying them. Even we don’t accept the product if the sellers directly knock on our door, another form of Non-store retail business – Door to Door, to sell it because shopping physically is entertainment to us. More elaborately we can say in Bangladesh we have very less opportunities to pass our leisure periods. Let’s take Dhaka city as example – around 20 million people are living here. How these people are actually passing their week end? How many people are actually getting the ticket of “Star Cineplex”? Or how many people pass their week end in some theme parks or in an expensive restaurant? Actually not that much people can enjoy these entertainments in Dhaka city as the scopes are limited; nevertheless many people having the spending capability. Another important thing city dweller will may not purchase the same entertainment repeatedly. And that’s why the city dwellers are enjoying the shopping as the alternative of amusement.
Source: Household Income & Expenditure Survey – 2005, BBS.
Statistic shows among the non earners 65.34% are women & most of them are housewives. These women are spending their time with several in-house activities & pass their leisure periods by watching television. But when they get bored they normally move out for shopping for having the recreation. So this segment will never choose the in-house solutions which can be offered by the marketers as the shopping is recreation to them.
So we can say the low wage economy, with high levels of unemployment and underemployment, will continue to rely on the physical presence of buyers and sellers during a transaction in most cases.
Less intension of reliable brands for Non-store retailing is another reason for not gaining the acceptance in Bangladesh. Markets/investors are not motivated to invest in this sector because of poor infrastructure which actually will affect the supply chain & ultimately on on-time delivery. So we can say poor infrastructure is another de-motivational fact for the investors.
It’s very much essential for the customers to know the use of internet to create the acceptance of Ecommerce for the consumer goods. But unluckily a less percentage of Bangladeshis are habituated with internet. Only 3.5% of total population is using internet. High speed internet facility is also an essence to enhance the Ecommerce. But it’s a matter of regret that Bangladesh ranked 174th out of 176 countries on the Household Download Index by Net Index. Even the high speed internet facility with reliability is quite expensive in Bangladesh. This poor infrastructure of internet is one of the vital survival issues for the digital marketing here.
People in Bangladesh are not used to the online shopping system and moreover the online payment system through the plastic card is also totally alien to them. Most of us are not availing the transaction facilities offered by the plastic cards.
Telemarketers are not enough knowledgeable to gain the success from domestic market. Lack of experience & expertise of marketers, and less reliability of the consumers are the barriers establishing telemarketing in our country.
So the synopsis is lower income level, poor infrastructure, weak legal environment, and lack of reliability between business and consumers are going to hinder the Non-store retailing in Bangladesh.
Despite having lots of de-motivational facts, Non-store retailing is having some advantages like physical presence is not essential, costs of operating retail outlets are eliminated, and span of customer coverage is considerably wider. And these facts will work as influential facts for the markets to follow one of the very effective ways of Business to Consumer (B2C) selling process – Non store retail business. Few names must need to mention – clickbd.com, cellbazar.com, ekhoni.com, rokomari.com etc. are smoothly & surely gaining success & customer reliability at domestic market. Some multinational & local private banks are also creating the customer habituation successfully with online banking process. Days are coming when we will see that our city dwellers want to save their time, want to save the gas, and want to avoid the hazard of travelling to get the in-house solution for their daily needs. And then the non-store retail business will play a very vital role to ensure the marketer’s profitability and ensure the customer satisfaction as well. And subsequently people of our country will start to consider their own house as a virtual POS to purchase anything through Non-store retailing.
