6 min read
Pak-China e-commerce venture, ezbuy, has arrived in Pakistan. The new entrant in the local e-commerce sector will buy the world for Pakistanis.
Pakistan is the fifth expansion market for ezbuy, after the platform established its operations across diverse markets in China, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand. With over three times more products offerings than the existing online market in Pakistan, ezbuy is ambitious to transform the e-retail landscape in Pakistan.
How did ezbuy choose Pakistan as its expansion market?
Kamran Shaukat, cofounder and CEO ezbuy Pakistan, holds over two decades of experience in retail industry. He kickstarted Mc Donald’s in Pakistan and have worked with major companies such as Walmart in the US and Shell in Singapore. Facilitating the global outsourcing of Walmart in China, Shaukat fostered a vast network of e-commerce stakeholders across Walmart and later Alibaba that later directed him towards establishing ezbuy in Pakistan.
Shaukat has been closely observing the Pakistan online retail market. Looking at the numbers and growth indicators, he knew the e-commerce sector remains underserved despite key players emerging in online retail. Unsure how to integrate technology, one of Shaukat’s mentor suggested him to collaborate with ezbuy.
ezbuy at that time had kickstarted from Singapore. A group of students arriving in the country for an academic degree ventured into building a platform to source products from Alibaba and Taobao to serve the Singaporean market. ezbuy has already grown into a popular online retail platform, when Shaukat decided to fly to Singapore and meet Xue Bin Vincent, Co-Founder & CEO ezbuy.
When Shaukat arrived at Vincent’s doorstep in April 2017, he was not very confident how the ezbuy CEO would react to his proposition. He was going through all the growth numbers for Pakistan to sound more convincing. All that was not required, because when Vincent opened the door, Shaukat just had to ask one question, “Do you know the relationship between Pakistan and China?”, Vincent responded, “Yes, we are brothers!”
They launched research center and a joint venture was signed amongst Shaukat, Vincent and Naeem, COO & Co-Founder ezbuy Pakistan. Naeem believes that Pakistani online retailers have yet to gain this unique experience. Currently, the local team comprises of 15 members across all verticals that are assisted by a 300-member team based out of Shanghai.
Drawing parallels to China, Vincent shares that China has been the fastest growing e-commerce country in the entire world. Between 2007 – 2013, China’s e-commerce sector has grown by leaps and bounds. Beyond 2013, South Asian countries have adopted a similar growth pattern. Vincent shares,
“We see in two years time, the mobile penetration is growing very fast in Pakistan, faster than China. Majority of people in Pakistan are under banked. We believe that our job is to drive the society towards inclusive mobile transactions as fast as possible. Certain unique mechanisms are required to allow customers to pay online and ezbuy is exactly is currently working on that.”
What is the competitive edge for ezbuy?
With access to over 1 billion products; a dozen of the largest retailers that includes JD, TMall, Amazon, Walmart and Taobao to name a few, and 10,000 unique suppliers; ezbuy promises to provide the Pakistani customers a unique chance to upgrade their lifestyle, add innovation to the shopping cart, live a differentiated retail experience.
ezbuy in Pakistan aspires to be phenomenal with technology, warehouse, and quality assurance abilities sourced from the past experience of Vincent and combined with the retail expertise of Shaukat and Naeem of the local retail sector of Pakistan. Vincent shares,
“We kickstarted from Singapore and expanded to eight countries. In Pakistan, we will become an enabler and our globalization experience will fuel the local e-commerce sector. We transfer our knowledge local partners so they proactively build the business, a customer base and utilize the strength of both parties.”
When asked about local competitors that dominate the local e-commerce sector, Shaukat believes that in an underserved market such as Pakistan, nobody is a competitor to each other. He says,
“In any digital business, it is not about competition but collaboration. We have been selling Alibaba products and sourced the products from their network. It is really about collaborating and making the whole ecosystem work so all segments of business and consumers get uplifted. We see Uber and Careem here, and it is evident how much it has benefited the locals. Therefore, we are happy to do it with China. After all, we have a land border with them.”
What’s next for ezbuy?
ezbuy has kickstarted its operations across Pakistan from August 1st. They have started with Chinese products which account for almost 70% of eCommerce produced globally and plan to expand by sourcing from USA and Korea.
On August 1st, the online retail platform has also launched, Haute Shop, that exports the best of Pakistani products to the globe under one fashion platform. Haute Shop aspires to take local fashion to a wide international audience and strengthening fashion exports of Pakistan.
In October, ezbuy plans to launch a B2B vertical that will serve Pakistani businesses to export and acquire products without the hassle of conventional of B2B business processes. ezbuy is looking at different vertical across all sectors such as health, education, tourism and others to provide sector-specific products.
So why should you shop at ezbuy? Vincent sums it up,
“We have done a full competence research in Pakistan. We will continue to disrupt this market. We want to make ezbuy Pakistan a brain-product for Pakistani shoppers. If Google is for search, ezbuy is for products. I think one very improtant thing in ezbuy is that we are customer oriented. We are primarily driven by the focus on customers happiness and satisfaction.”
Shaukat adds,
“We want to be the best platform to work, live, play, and make Pakistanis happier. We all know happy people are the most productive people. We are friends with China. We are still evolving and tabdeeli is in the air!”
The story is made possible by Talking Point, a boutique agency working to develop the marketing industry in Pakistan.
