Lahore School of Economics

A distinguished seat of learning known for high-quality teaching and research

Status of e-commerce and digital marketing in Pakistan
April 20, 2022

Mr. Badar Khushnood, Co-Founder Fishry.com paid a visit to the Lahore School MBA program on 18th April 2022 to deliver a session on the current status of e-commerce and digital marketing in Pakistan.

Badar, who is a regular guest at our MBA program, opened his session by urging our MBA candidates to consider joining startups for careers. It is true that many startups fail, but those that do succeed offer increasingly more employment, and thus those MBAs who might have been working at a startup which failed can then join those which have grown.

Badar explained different models of e-commerce: some are large transaction B2B models such as Ali Baba; some are Wholesaler to Retailer (W2R) B2B models such as Bazaar, Jugnu, Retailo and Tajir, helping the retailer to bypass the order-taker; some are B2C such as Foodpanda and Daraz; some are C2C or P2P such as PakWheels, OLX and so on. Fishry.com is DTC or direct to consumer, allowing e.g. KFC to sell directly to the consumer.

E-commerce in Pakistan was growing but was limited by the fact that only 1% of Pakistanis had a credit card. Pakistan’s online commerce was only 2% of total commerce, whereas in China it was 35%. At the same time, government had made some changes in e-commerce policies which should help its growth in Pakistan.

E-commerce was leading to some problems as well. Take the example of advertising and selling on fora like Daraz. One particular headache for brands now was the fact that many online buyers were not remembering the names of the brands they bought, thus hurting brand equities. On the other hand, companies were not managing their own online inventories well.

One advice to MBA graduates: They must get certifications from Google Garage, Google Analytics, Google Adwords and Facebook. These certifications will help them in their careers.

Mr. Badar Khushnood is a very well respected name in both e-commerce and digital marketing in Pakistan, and has now very useful experience of working with our government. Lahore School hopes that its famous alumnus will keep on adding value to its programs.

Labels: Alumni, Guest Speaker