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Ghoori: This Is What We've Found About Bangladesh's First eCommerce Platform

Ecommerce is now everyday startup in Dhaka. With easy access to internet, which is growing rapidly, number of people opening e-shops online, ecommerce websites and f-commerce pages on facebook, is on the rise. Although this is not a trend that we can appreciate given that in the long run many of these businesses will not survive, instead they are making it hard for serious players to play smart. Nevertheless, these small businesses have been very creative in terms of using limited resources in best possible way and making things feasible for them. One of the problems these businesses face over the time is designing a website that is easy to manage and that supports their needs and integrates required support systems in it.

This is where Ghoori, a platform that offers managed e-shops [e-commerce website], comes into play.

Basic

Ghoori is an ecommerce platform that let its users to open e-shop. That’s a very simple service. There are companies that offer similar service and let users open managed e-shops. However, Ghoori aims to go beyond that. While offering option for opening managed e-shop, it also aims to manage logistical support, payment mechanism for e-shops on its platform.

It means, now if you are an ecommerce startup and open your e-shop on Ghoori platform, you have well designed website which is fully managed, it has payment mechanisms integrated, logistics integrated, and it gives you access to a community of ecommerce businesses. Now you can focus fully on building your business instead of getting involved into managing nitty-gritty of your website.

[blockquote source] If you are an ecommerce startup and open your e-shop on Ghoori platform, you have well designed website which is fully managed, it has payment mechanisms integrated, logistics integrated, and it gives you access to a community of ecommerce businesses.[/blockquote]

Open eshop (1)

Body and flesh

Ghoori offers four distinct features: a managed e-commerce website, integrated payment gateways, built-in logistic support, and analytic. You don’t need to worry about the design, updates, coding, and nothing about your website. All hassles related to managing your ecommerce website is now taken care by Ghoori.

It integrates payment gateway. It means you don’t need to think about payment channels. It also adds logistic supports to the system. Ghoori partners with logistic companies like e-courier to ensure proper delivery support for companies.

[blockquote source]The biggest advantage of using Ghoori is that it offers a really simple design. Anyone can handle it. It does not stop there; it offers built-in analytic to measure your shop and progress.[/blockquote]

Ghoori takes a close look into what every ecommerce business needs and build a product that helps businesses focus more on real thing instead of getting caught up with trifles. Ghoori focuses on making e-commerce better for everyone, so businesses can focus on what they do best: building and selling their products. Merchants can use the platform to manage every aspect of their business — from products to orders to customers.

The biggest advantage of using Ghoori is that it offers a really simple design. Anyone can handle it. It does not stop there; it offers built-in analytic to measure your shop and progress.

Genius comes in cluster, so does business

There are shopping centers for specific products. For computers and related products you go to BCS Computer City in Agargaon. For clothing you go to New Market. For books you go to Nilkhet. This is because business happens in cluster. An isolated shop far from its center seldom works. Ghoori is like a shopping center. It hosts hundreds of shops, which means there will be your buyers and buyers of other businesses as well. It offers an advantage that a single ecommerce website can’t offer.

As a platform Ghoori will host hundreds of businesses in its platform. It means there will be many other shops like yours and there will be more visitors and users than a single ecommerce website can attract. It means you will have buyers who will not go to the platform for you but will eventually end up buying from you as well.

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A search engine, a platform, and a powerful combination

Ghoori is powered by Chorki-Bangladesh’s newly launched search engine. It means it will naturally get SEO advantage in Chorki search. Over the time, once Chorki becomes more popular and people search more on Chorki, Ghoori shops will receive more traffic.

Ghoori, in a sense is a community of ecommerce businesses. How community works is very interesting. If anyone does well in a community, it affects every member of the community. It means when an individual business of the platform promotes itself, it brings good for all, multiplying total good many times compare to an isolated website. It also true for negatives as well.

[blockquote source]Ghoori, in a sense is a community of ecommerce businesses. How community works is very interesting. If anyone does well in a community, it affects every member of the community. [/blockquote]

Advantage becomes the disadvantage

People want privacy and individual identity even though they crave for community. We want to be part of something big but we don’t want to lose ourselves into it. For Ghoori, the challenge will be satisfying demand of individual business to become a separate entity instead of an e-shop in Ghoori platform.

It means Ghoori has to find a way to let individual businesses go independent while maintaining a common cord to keep all together. Ghoor is addressing this challenge by offering separate domain name to businesses that want one. But you will have to pay extra for a domain name which is logical and you will still have the managed website advantage and community advantage.

3 (1)

Product

There are around 16 shops now on Ghoori platform and they are running a beta version. However, the home page look is not as attractive as it should be. It is not impressive. However, creating an e-shop on Ghoori platform is easy. It takes only few steps to get it done. You can sign-up with your facebook account and get started.

Individual shop looks a lot like Facebook page but it shows products in a beautiful way. Over the time Ghoori aims to improve the design and make it more intuitive for users. However, at this moment Payment mechanism and delivery system don’t work for the platform.

[blockquote source]There are around 16 shops now on Ghoori platform and they are running a beta version. However, the home page look is not as attractive as it should be. It is not impressive.[/blockquote]

If you run an ecommerce business or want to start one, you can move or start your shop on Ghoori platform. It frees you up from the hassle of managing a website, handling payment issues, and running for delivery partner. You just focus on your business.

Coda

We need a local ecommerce platform not because we don’t have one but because there are problems in the space to be solved. Ghoori, as a product at the moment, does not look that much promising but it has got potential. If done right it will go a long way.

The good thing for Ghoori is that it is part of Chorki and it is a platform. At the same time the challenge will be to ensure individual identity for the businesses. At this moment the product is mediocre but we hope Ghoori will address these problems before launching final version.

There will be dominant ecommerce players in Bangladesh and marketplaces that would not need Ghoori service but there will always be ecommerce businesses that will benefit from Ghoori. Many of today’s popular facebook commerce pages can use Ghoori service to better run their businesses and earn more money.

Credit: Images by Ghoori

Mohammad Ruhul Kader is a Dhaka-based entrepreneur and writer. He founded Future Startup, a digital publication covering the startup and technology scene in Dhaka with an ambition to transform Bangladesh through entrepreneurship and innovation. He writes about internet business, strategy, technology, and society. He is the author of Rethinking Failure. His writings have been published in almost all major national dailies in Bangladesh including DT, FE, etc. Prior to FS, he worked for a local conglomerate where he helped start a social enterprise. Ruhul is a 2022 winner of Emergent Ventures, a fellowship and grant program from the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. He can be reached at ruhul@futurestartup.com

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