Ecommerce Startup Evaly Launches With Big Ambition

Evaly, a new e-commerce startup that aims to offer largest collection of products to users in a single platform, ensure fastest delivery in metros and empower retailers by offering a direct digital storefront for their offline shop, has formally launched in Dhaka on 16th December in a lunch event held at Le Meridien Dhaka and participated by industry insiders and e-commerce enthusiasts.

Founded by Mohammad Rassel, a successful second-time entrepreneur, Evaly aims to be a marketplace with the largest number of retailers and the largest collection of products in Bangladesh.

The startup says it already has over 4000 categories of products and wants to become the product search engine in Bangladesh.

“Our ambition is to build an everything store where you would literally find everything,” says Mohammad Rassel.

Evaly has started working closely with offline retailers and is offering them a storefront that they can use as their online shop. It claims to have 15,000 retailers/merchants on its platform. Users can order products on Evaly website or using its app from anywhere in Bangladesh.

What you need to know

• Evaly aims to build the largest product collection in Bangladesh. It says it wants to be the everything store where customers could find anything. If it could pull this off, it would be a game changer not only for Evaly but also for the entire e-commerce industry in Bangladesh.
• It claims to have 4000 product categories, 20,000 local and internal brands, 50,000 registered members on its platform during the launch.
• In the next three years, it aims to have 500,000 retailers on its platform and one million within five years.
  Evaly works with the real offline retailers who have an offline store but no online presence. It wants to bring their offline store online. Customers will be buying from offline retailers online and can have the offline equivalent guarantee of product quality and service.
• Evaly sees working with offline retailers as something critical because it would allow them to build the product collection as well ensure trust and service quality at the same time.
• Evaly has introduced a logistics service called Evaly Xpress. It says it would ensure three-hour delivery in same city orders and 8-24 hours intercity delivery depending on the distance.

Why it matters

Empowering retailers and building the largest product and merchant aggregator - these are ambitious goals. But there is certainly a winning business to be built in this space.

As we slowly move from penetration to the creation phase of the internet, an increasing number of businesses would need to have their online presence. If Evaly can position itself as a viable platform for retailers, it can become that storefront for a large number of retailers across the country.

Having a large number of retailers means, you automatically have a large product collection. While this makes perfect sense, customer remains a key component for any aggregator. You need customers to retain the retailers and continue to improve as a platform. Evaly says it has competitive advantages such as speedy delivery, shared trust between offline and online retailers and easy product search.

Bangladesh has made unprecedented progress in internet and mobile phone penetration. According to BTRC, the country has over 147 million mobile phone subscribers and growing and as of September 2018, over 90.05 million internet users. As more people start their internet journey, they will completely change how we shop, buy and consume.

The eCommerce industry has grown steadily in recent years in Bangladesh. The market size has grown. Big investments have happened. Payment infrastructure has improved. There are challenges as well. Logistics remains a challenge. But the signs are on the side of positives. Coupled with the internet and mobile penetration, the future of commerce is certainly going to be very different.