E-commerce business in Bangladesh [20 mistakes to avoid]

E-commerce business in Bangladesh [20 mistakes to avoid]

E-commerce (electronic commerce) is the manufacturing and purchasing of goods and services, or the supplying of funds or data through an electronic network, especially through internet connection. E- commerce in Bangladesh is now a talk in town, as it is a platform where businesses can fully bloom with minimal investment than a real commercial platform. The increasing rate of e-commerce in Bangladesh is really noteworthy, because the platform has started to take part in the country’s economy. So e-commerce business holders need to be careful to build up user -friendly websites by avoiding mistakes which really leave impacts on the popularity of websites.

According to the eCommerce Association of Bangladesh (e-Cab), there were 700 e-commerce sites around and 8000 e-commerce pages on facebook. The number has already increased by the passage of these years. Users of e-commerce business are increasing in cities, towns and even in villages.

In this article, we will discuss 20 mistakes made in e-commerce and suggest ways to avoid these mistakes with proper explanation and examples.

1. Choosing wrong E-commerce Platform:

Choosing the right e-commerce platform is very important in e-commerce business in Bangladesh. Choosing the right platform depends on various factors like product type, scale of business, degree of control over the website and budget etc. Choosing the wrong e-commerce platform may collapse down a website’s business. The shortcomings of selecting the wrong e-commerce platform are-

• Sales revenue loss may be occured
• traffic reduction because of improper arrangements of the website
• security issues or not secured websites may cause higher bouncer rate
• poor design of websites naturally distracts the attention of users

Image 1: Websites Using Magento have less participation in Social Gathering

68 websites connected with e-commerce business in Bangladesh, choose magento as e-commerce platform. No doubt that the platform is user friendly , according to the above analysis it gave the platform a 56.7 score for an average performance. But sites are not involved with social media at a satisfactory level, while social media is a vital way to earn sales revenue for the websites. Magento may offer the websites to provide social plugins in their web pages to increase revenue and customers visit.

2. Poorly developed Website

Websites with poor navigation, too much colour or very dull colour and unorganized functions or missing options are the sign of poorly developed websites.Some elements of poorly developed websites are-

• Higher bounce rate or large number of the percentage of the people leaving the website is a vital occurrence
• Too much clutter minimizes the white space of a website, where white space is important to hold a person’s attention
• Complex forms, broken links causes bad navigation system
• If loading of photos get slower, several visitors may leave the page
• Too much implementation of plugins or third party tool may slow down page

Image 2: This website has a problem of slow loading of images

If we notice this picture, we will see that the loading of images is slower in Focallurebd.com website.

3. Distracting UI & UX design

UI means the user interaction with the service or site, while UX is the user experience with the service. Distracting or degrading UI & UX design are harmful for e-commerce business in Bangladesh such as-

• Designing cluttered layout may frustrate customers
• Lack of hierarchy may confuse user
• Lack of customers’ feedback may hamper the trust issues of other customers.
• Sometimes, a website’s menu is confusing
• Many websites’ CTA button do not work properly

Image 3: Call to action button stopped working on Daraz

In this image, the CTA button “buy now” was pressed but unfortunately it took a long time to respond and after a while, the webpage was not available for taking too much time to process the action.

4. Underestimate Mobile-Friendliness

Nowadays, people of Bangladesh are very comfortable using mobile phones. So websites which are mobile friendly have a better chance to get more traffic and conversion . Several limitations of a website causes the mistake of underestimating mobile friendliness, such as-

• Too small text of a website to read on a mobile screen
• Touch elements are too close together
• Functionalities may not work on mobile phone for several sites

Image 4: The website has small fonts to read and also touch element are too closed

Alzak Bd , an e-commerce business site of Bangladesh, is not so mobile friendly for having small text to read on mobile screen and touch elements are too close to conduct with the page. Not only that, the website also used so muted colour which can cause problems to read the information of products for a visitor.

5. Lack of knowledge of competitive market

Many e-commerce businesses in Bangladesh shut down within a short period of their opening because of not being able to take part in competition with other e-commerce businesses. Lack of knowledge of competitive market results from below reasons-

• Being unconscious about a product’s competitive selling price
• Do not provide offers or discount on special occasions or events
• Do not have return policy while other websites offer return policy within a certain time
• Not offering home delivery services like other websites
• Displaying same type of products and do not update the collection for a long time
• Missing the option of supporting customers by customer care number or FAQ option

Image 5: Alzak Bd website without any customer support options (cell number, mail address)

This website does not provide any options to support a customer’s need or query, no cell number, facebook id link to message or any email address. This mistake costs as customers do not get options to ask or seek help about the products or services of this site.

6. Not enough knowledge about target consumer

Knowing less about the target consumer is another mistake to avoid in e-commerce business in Bangladesh. This mistake can result in many negative impressions of the customers, such as-

• The website fails to attract a huge number of customers come from different background but need the same product
• In Bangladesh, most of the customers search for economic shopping, so websites who are not budget friendly, also ignorant about customers’ interest lag behind in their business
• Websites containing products like beauty care, fashion and lifestyle may contain dull and backdated layouts which fail to attract the targeted group of customers, teenagers and young people who actually care about the layout of these websites

Image 6: Ordinary and Monochromic Design to catch the attention of consumers

Perfecto BD has lots of products to sell, but their layout and design of the website is very boring and does not go with their selling products, like make up, beauty care and skin care etc. No uses of graphical images, using stock images decreases the appealing side of this website to the consumers also.

7. Overuse of Popup options

Overuse of popup options is another mistake to avoid for e-commerce businesses in Bangladesh. The consequences of this mistake are-

• Appear of popup in wrong time, when consumer is doing a critical task like searching for the product he/she needs immediately from the site, may disturb the consumer
• Showing multiple popups may proof the website unprofessional and distract customer
• Too much use of popups may slow down the loading speed of main content

Image 7: Pop-up on BDpens.com

From the above picture, we can see the example of a pop-up for login/register whoever enters the site of BDpens.com. All customers may not desire to register with the site but this pop-up is displayed at the very beginning of entering to the page.

8. Slow Loading Pages

This is another mistake to avoid in the e-commerce business in Bangladesh. This mistake costs in many ways, like

• Slow loading pages are the examples of poorly developed websites
• Website configuration is not so strong for a standard page layout, so fail to load pages with quality picture and content within a short time
• It also frustrates customers as slowing down of websites waste their valuable time

Image 8: Slow Loading of Rokomari.com Website

Rokomari.com is a renowned e-commerce business in Bangladesh, but their pages are slow to load, which is quite disappointing for consumers.

Here you can see, rokomari.com website loading time is 8.4 sec where the average loading time for a website should be 2 to 3 sec. A slow loaded site is an indicator of negative ranking status.

9. Absent of product filters & sorting options

This mistake is also problematic for the consumers of a particular site. Absent of product filters & sorting options create such shortcomings for a website, such as-

• A mess of huge product collection will hampers the website’s layout
• A customer will suffer a lot while searching for a particular product without product filter and sorting option

Image 9: Absence of Product Filter Option in Makeup World BD Website

Website mentioned in the picture has sorting options, a consumer can find the variation of product type, but there is no filtering option of product price, product weight etc. in this website.

10. Duplicate Content

Duplicate content on a website means, according to google, “substantive blocks of content within or across domains that either completely match other content, or are appreciably similar”. This mistake is not ignorable in e-commerce business of Bangladesh, because-

• Duplicate content reduces the possibility of in search results
• Confusion among the consumer arises because they get confuse about the actual owner of the content or product

Image 10: Chaldal.com website’s duplicate content percentage

We did a little assessment on chaldal.com and found 30% duplicate content on the website. A website can have 25 -30% of duplicate content but it’s ideal to fix those. Otherwise it confuses search engines & ends up harming your SEO performance.

11. Less or Excessive amount of Social Integration

People nowadays depend a bit more on social media like facebook, instagram, twitter and linkedin etc. So websites without social integration plugins or without involvement of comments/reviews through social media cannot achieve the trust issue or flexibility of the consumers. Again lots of involvement of social media distracts customers.

Image 11: A website without any social integration plugins

The website in the picture is “7 Lake’s Beauty”, a lifestyle oriented e-commerce business in Bangladesh. The website does not provide any social media involvement through plugins or comments or reviews.

12. Bad quality Product image or Using stock images

Bad quality images of products or images downloaded from google or other sites prove the poor presentation of a website. This mistake is very common in e-commerce business in Bangladesh. Customers also feel distracted for images of poor quality.

Image 12: Poor image quality of products on Chaldal.com

This picture of hand sanitizer is borrowed from Chaldal.com website, where the quality of product image is bad, and quite unattractive for consumers.

13. Not displaying Product Reviews

Not displaying the reviews of products is another big mistake because,

• Absence of reviews creates doubt about the product authentication
• Customers give importance on product reviews to gain confidence about buying products
• Missing of reviews of products may discourage customers to deal with the website

Image 13: No product review on Priyoshop website

PriyoShop is a leading site of e-commerce business in Bangladesh, but still it does not provide any review of products to draw customer’s attention in a more faithful way.

14. Inconvenient Payment System

Many e-commerce business sites in Bangladesh provide insufficient payment options. This mistake causes difficulty for the consumers who do not have the payment option mentioned in those websites.

Image 14: BDpens.com only has the option of Bkash Payment

In the picture, a website named BDpens.com does not show convenience in payment policy, so customers who do not use Bkash payment, cannot purchase goods from this website on shipment.

15. Lack of Shipping Options

Websites provide shipment options for customers who purchase products online. In e-commerce business of Bangladesh, websites provide courier system, cash on delivery or pick up point system as shipment options. Lack of shipment causes many problems such as-

• A website with few options of shipment may loss a group of customers who are unable to reach the products through limited shipping options
• The website may lag behind in the competition of commercial websites because of having limited shipment option

Image 15: A website with few shipment options

In this picture, BDpens.com only offers delivery through Sundarban Courier Service, no other courier company is connected with the website.

16.Not using Retargeting Marketing techniques

Retargeting marketing technique seems like-

• A customer visit a particular website
• He/she leaves that website without buying anything
• The website appears through an ad in front of that particular customer later on, he/she is online, this helps retarget the customer

If the website is unconscious about retargeting customers, that site may lose the opportunity of seeking attention of the customer through retargeting techniques.

17. Not compatible with different browsers

Some websites of e-commerce businesses in Bangladesh are not fit for all browsers. They are sometimes unfit for opera or chrome or firefox. This mistake reduces the number of consumers of a website and the availability of that site because the users who use opera mini, may not get access for the website which does not run through opera mini.

18. Absent of SEO optimization

The Absence of SEO optimization is another mistake made on websites, but the mistake is not noticed carefully. This mistake causes for some failings of the websites, such as-

• Absence of proper research of keywords that are being searched by targeted consumers
• Unavailability of on-page optimization so google cannot understand what is the content of the website
• Being inattentive of link building and critical of course inbound link are critical to rank high

19. No internal links

Internal links are the links that go from one page of the domain to another page of the same domain. This mistake is overlooked in e-commerce business in Bangladesh but the fact is very important for a website to be useful to the customer to navigate easily.This mistake can cause some difficulties for the website, such as-

• Absence of internal link may reduce the number of page views
• No internal links causes the demotivating position of a website in page rank

Image 16: BDstall provides no internal links in their homepage

BDstall, a website based on e-commerce is shown in the above picture. They displayed product pictures with links, but it would be easier for customers to navigate if the website attached internal links of particular brand names like Hitachi, Asus, Acer, and Panasonic, etc to visit particular brand products at one go.

20. Not monitoring the performance & Site Errors

There are many websites who promote e-commerce business in Bangladesh. But many startups fall down because of not monitoring the performance of the websites and site errors. Some of the disadvantages of this mistake are-

• Server may face trouble to find a particular website, which is not well monitored for a long time
• Slow loading pages which losses customers attention from the site
• Not monitoring the security of the website decreases the position of the website from page rank and the server may warn users about the website as it is not secured.

No doubt that daraz is one of the most renowned e-commerce sites in Bangladesh, but we can see that our server is giving notification about the site, because it’s not secured, which is a severe mistake by a famous website like daraz. Because “Not secured” means the website providing service without secured connection, which prohibits customers’ interest to login with the site, to give personal information.

Bangladesh is increasing its involvement in e-commerce business.Bangladesh ranked 147 out of 176 countries on the ITU’s ICT Development Index in 2017. According to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, Bangladesh has ranked 103rd among 152 countries in global e-commerce index in 2019, so the progress in e-commerce business sector within two years is very appreciating for e-commerce business owners and stakeholders of Bangladesh. For an efficient way to connect consumers and to run a flourished journey in e-commerce business, websites of Bangladesh need to minimize and avoid these mistakes.