E-Commerce in Pakistan
By: Asad Ali Shah
The world has gone too far in e-commerce and in some part of the world majority of people do their work and business only through internet, but Pakistan is still on the stage where there is no proper infrastructure available to e-commerce.
The world's best e-commerce services provider companies are still hesitating to start operations in Pakistan. PayPal, Authorize.net and Worldpay are working almost all over the world except Pakistan. These companies are also working in India and China in this region but have no intention to start their business in Pakistan.
In other hand, Govt. of Pakistan is also not realizing its responsibilities to provide such platform to the companies who are willing to provide such services. But in fact its the weakness of Govt. of Pakistan which is not attracting or in other words allowing the e-commerce business tycoons to start their operations in Pakistan which is a huge market of 180 million population.
The main part of E-Commerce is online shopping facility where a person can view products & goods online and order for the selected items through internet while sitting at home and the best part of this shopping is online payment through credit or debit card. But unfortunately there is no proper E-Commerce service provider in Pakistan who can offer online shopping facility in Pakistan. As I described above that there is a great opportunity available in starting this business here in Pakistan.
The world's best online shopping platforms are ebay and amazon, but unfortunately both of them are not working in Pakistan. There are some online stores working in Pakistan but they are using Western or American payment gateways.
There is a huge capital involve in E-Commerce, e.g. PayPal Europe had €201m turnover in the first 6 months of year 2007 while they had €275 million turn over in 2006. So you can see only one company paypal had such a huge turn over in only Europe, and it has same kind of huge turn over in other parts of the world.
This is the only one part of E-Commerce which is called online payment gateway which means the payment processors or facilitators.
Domain and hosting services are also very important factor in the E-Commerce. There are few companies which are providing such facilities in Pakistan but thier hosting servers are based out of Pakistan.
The major drawback is that when you host E-Commerce type database driven websites, it takes a lot of time to open, and it takes more time when the website is hosted at a long distance location.
Security is another important factor in E-Commerce. There are two types of securities in IT, first is to protect your computer from viruses and second one is to protect buyer and seller while using E-Commerce facility. Again there is no company offering any kind of IT security in Pakistan.
So we suggest Govt. of Pakistan to take necessary actions to promote e-commerce in Pakistan and encourage companies which are interested in starting such services in the country and facilitate foreign companies as well especially Paypal and ebay to start their businesses in Pakistan. We can bring a lot of investment in the country and also can generate a huge turnover through this business. Look at our neighbour, Indian IT exports are more than three times to the total exports of Pakistan.
The world has gone too far in e-commerce and in some part of the world majority of people do their work and business only through internet, but Pakistan is still on the stage where there is no proper infrastructure available to e-commerce.
The world's best e-commerce services provider companies are still hesitating to start operations in Pakistan. PayPal, Authorize.net and Worldpay are working almost all over the world except Pakistan. These companies are also working in India and China in this region but have no intention to start their business in Pakistan.
In other hand, Govt. of Pakistan is also not realizing its responsibilities to provide such platform to the companies who are willing to provide such services. But in fact its the weakness of Govt. of Pakistan which is not attracting or in other words allowing the e-commerce business tycoons to start their operations in Pakistan which is a huge market of 180 million population.
The main part of E-Commerce is online shopping facility where a person can view products & goods online and order for the selected items through internet while sitting at home and the best part of this shopping is online payment through credit or debit card. But unfortunately there is no proper E-Commerce service provider in Pakistan who can offer online shopping facility in Pakistan. As I described above that there is a great opportunity available in starting this business here in Pakistan.
The world's best online shopping platforms are ebay and amazon, but unfortunately both of them are not working in Pakistan. There are some online stores working in Pakistan but they are using Western or American payment gateways.
There is a huge capital involve in E-Commerce, e.g. PayPal Europe had €201m turnover in the first 6 months of year 2007 while they had €275 million turn over in 2006. So you can see only one company paypal had such a huge turn over in only Europe, and it has same kind of huge turn over in other parts of the world.
This is the only one part of E-Commerce which is called online payment gateway which means the payment processors or facilitators.
Domain and hosting services are also very important factor in the E-Commerce. There are few companies which are providing such facilities in Pakistan but thier hosting servers are based out of Pakistan.
The major drawback is that when you host E-Commerce type database driven websites, it takes a lot of time to open, and it takes more time when the website is hosted at a long distance location.
Security is another important factor in E-Commerce. There are two types of securities in IT, first is to protect your computer from viruses and second one is to protect buyer and seller while using E-Commerce facility. Again there is no company offering any kind of IT security in Pakistan.
So we suggest Govt. of Pakistan to take necessary actions to promote e-commerce in Pakistan and encourage companies which are interested in starting such services in the country and facilitate foreign companies as well especially Paypal and ebay to start their businesses in Pakistan. We can bring a lot of investment in the country and also can generate a huge turnover through this business. Look at our neighbour, Indian IT exports are more than three times to the total exports of Pakistan.