Success factors of e-commerce in Bangladesh – Part 2



It was 2016. High-speed internet connectivity was available to mass people, especially in major cities. Telecom operators were rolling out 3G network all over Bangladesh. The expansion of the 3G network made internet connection with “acceptable” speed possible, even in the areas of the country.



Around this time, the Bangladeshi e-commerce industry started blooming. Especially in cities, shopping from an e-commerce site was becoming a common practice every day. Though, the wrong product, late delivery, etc. issues were hurting consumers very badly. Even after, facing a lot of issues, e-commerce companies were receiving a lot of orders during various festivals. But the orders were limited to fashion items, mainly. The average basket size was 1000-2000 BDT maximum.



In this bottleneck situation, an e-commerce company disrupted the market with a very bold & brave strategy! And now in 2020, we all know the name of the company, which is no other than Pickaboo! At this moment, we all will be agreed that their strategy worked fabulously. But entering the e-commerce market with electronics items was a very audacious decision during 2016.



Question is, what made Pickaboo this much successful? Just like our first writing of this series, I will analyze the strategies of Pickaboo to find out what are the success factors of them in the Bangladeshi e-commerce sector.
Pickaboo is a brand child of Silver Water Technologies Bangladesh Limited. Specifically, the operation started on 15 May 2016. Arun Gupta and Aminur Rashid founded Pickaboo, which now has more than 200 employees. Edison Group from Bangladesh and MoMagic from India were the initial investors, who invested heavily at the early stage of the company. Last year, Pickaboo has gone through some major hiccups including investments. Whatever, they recently have announced new funding from an unknown source.



Success factors of Pickaboo in e-commerce



  1. Branding: Back at late 2016, I was scrolling my Facebook news feed. Suddenly, my eyes got stuck to a happy, friendly light blue colored cartoon. It got my full attention and after clicking the Facebook advertisement, I discovered a new player in the e-commerce market with electronics products!

    Pickaboo mascot
    Dear readers, you might already have guessed correctly that, the new player was Pickaboo. By sharing about my introduction to Pickaboo, hopefully, you already got an idea how strong is the branding of it. From the very beginning, Pickaboo is service focused company & that's what they have reflected in their branding.

    They have perfectly matched the name “Pickaboo” with the friendly mascot of them. It gives a clear message to the customers that, they will get quality products along with great service. And this is what they are doing every day untill now.
  2. Product quality & cost: I have already mentioned that one of the founders of Pickaboo is Edison Group, who is the owner of Symphony mobile phone brand. By having Edison Group on board had enabled Pickaboo to get a very deep understanding of the mobile phone market of Bangladesh. This assists them to offer authentic mobile phones and accessories of all brands at a very competitive price.

    Besides providing best quality handsets, Pickaboo also had introduced the Equal Monthly Installment (EMI) facility available for a wide array of customers. This facility attracted a good chunk of handset sales.
  3. Website: Honestly, Pickaboo offers an average quality website to the consumers. Since 2017, they have not updated their website. But, I must admit if you want to order any product from them, you'll get a seamless experience. The platform might not be shiny or polished, but it just works.

    Moreover, to achieve better customer retention, they also offers loyalty points to customers. In my experience, they are one of the very few companies to introduce this facility in Bangladesh.
  4. Delivery & support: This is one of the strengths of Pickaboo, I must say. They know it very well that, in most cases, an e-commerce company provides mainly service to its customers. This is the principal product for them. That's where Pickaboo don't compromise with quality at all.

    The customer service team consists of 30+ members, who ensure perfect, on-time product delivery. It's delivery fleet also helped them to ensure smooth experience during delivery. If you face any issue in any stage of your order, you can contact them via call center, live chat or on their Facebook page.
    As they are service focused on the core, they are maintaining high-quality service till now. And this results in great favor for them. This strategy enabled them to achieve a comparatively higher retention rate.
  5. Investment: Investment is the key point where most of the startups have failed miserably in the past & now live in oblivion. This is where Pickaboo excels somehow.
    From the inception, Pickaboo had good investors behind its back, as I mentioned earlier. At the early stage, this has given them enough space to grow. But nothing lasts forever. 2019 was not a good year for Pickaboo. We have seen some news about the extinction of it. Though they are lucky to handle it quickly & announced new funding round from unknown source.
Having experienced and dynamic members on board ushered Pickaboo to every rudimentary principal in this sector of Bangladesh. And that is why they are at peak of the pyramid now. I believe, in coming days, they will lead the industry in a very interesting way!

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