What began as the brainchild of entrepreneur and CEO of Buyon.Pk, Anum Kamran, ended up becoming the country’s first dedicated E-Commerce Conference held on a notable scale. It wasn’t so long ago that Anum decided to form the Pakistan E-Commerce Consortium, a support group for e-commerce sites in Pakistan.
Soon after they managed to make quite an impact at the hyped up Momentum Conference in Karachi with a dedicated E-Commerce Lounge. The Lounge invited many prominent members of the E-Commerce and Startup Space, including Badar Khushnood, Khurram Zafar, and Bilal Mumtaz (Sehat.com.pk).
The two main discussions that occurred there concerned the pioneers of the e-commerce space (Saad Jangda of Symbios.pk and Shayaan Tahir or HomeShopping.pk), and the logistics industry among which Qasim Awan of TCS, Qasim Anis of Leopards, Imran Buxamosa of Blue-Ex, and Hassan Khan of Trax Logistics shared their valuable insights.
Inaugural E-Com Connect Conference
A few months later, Anum decided to do something on a much bigger scale – hold the flagship conference of the Pakistan E-Commerce Consortium.
She coined the term “E-Com Connect” on her own and then decided to partner up with two other people – Bilal Mumtaz from Sehat.com.pk and Hassan A Shahid from Mercantile Exchange (formerly the Chapter Director for Startup Grind for Sialkot) – for a planned conference in Islamabad.
Getting a conference underway, especially an inaugural one, is certainly no easy task. Yet with the continuous support of the 3 patrons, a successful conference ensued on the 13th of November, 2018, at the National Incubation Center (NIC), Islamabad.
The Venue
The conference was designed to be held in collaboration with a concurrent Startup Conference named “LIFT” which was being organized by Jumpstart Pakistan.
One of the first things to check off was the venue, which required a lot of phone calls and running around. However, through an intense search of different venues and locations for the proposed conference, it was through Yusuf Hussain’s kind gesture that the National Incubation Center in Islamabad was finally selected as the host venue for the conference.
The partners for the event included KickStart Co-Working Space, Careem, VirginTeez, National Incubation Center, FreshStart PR, Buyon.PK, Apex Solutions, and Mercantile Exchange.
A Star-Studded Event
The lineup was described as “star-studded” by many who have been following the tech space in Pakistan.
The Speakers were as follows:
- Parvez Abbasi – Director at NIC Islamabad
- Badar Khushnood – CEO Bramerz
- Omar Moeen Malik – Head of Digital Payments at Telenor Microfinance Bank
- Maria Umer – #shemeansbusiness
- Saad Munir – Hexa Clicks
- Alina Zeeshan – Islamabad AI
The following panel discussions took place at the event:
Customer Experience in E-commerce
Mufeez Rana – AutoX, Umar Qamar – Export Leftovers, Muhammad Khalid – Clicky.pk, and Adeel Shaffi – PriceOye) were part of the panel discussion.
Digital Healthcare
Nadir Mumtaz – Sehat.com.pk, Akbar Mumtaz – AugmentCare, Shimail Daud Arain – Maryam Memorial Hospital, and Sarfraz Arshad – TalkHealth attended the discussion.
How Event Unfolded
Bilal Mumtaz opened the conference with an introduction to the E-Commerce Industry in Pakistan, which only generates $0.37 billion in revenue, and constitutes 0.2% e-Gross Merchandise Value (eGMV) of all retail sales in the country.
This is in stark contrast to the $530 billion and 10% figures of the US and the $1.5 trillion and 28% figures of China. Even our neighbor India has a 3% eGMVof all retail sales and $27 billion in e-commerce sales.
Parvez Abbasi took the floor and ensured the audience that Pakistan still has a long way to go in E-Commerce. He stressed three main components of e-commerce for imminent success:
- Price competition
- Superior quality of products
- Impeccable logistics.
He also highlighted the need for “bidding” e-commerce sites where prices can be negotiated, as a model that is quite native to our buying culture.
Badar Khushnood began with his life story. Working for some of the most reputable companies in Pakistan, and then working with tech giants, Google and Twitter, Badar now runs a digital marketing company by the name of Bramerz and also heads Fishry, which is a shopping cart software employed globally.
Badar said that the era of Web 3.0 is upon us, where cloud storage has become a game changer, especially in Pakistan. He felt that startups in Pakistan ‘give up very soon’. He was of the view that startups should realize that reiteration of an idea is a process that will ultimately lead to success.
Pakistan, according to Badar, is one of the top 6 countries in the world for freelancing – starting as a freelancer is easy, but building a career in it is hard.
He then examined the E-Commerce Industry, which still constitutes a low percentage of total retail sales, and the various models of e-commerce: B2B (AliBaba), B2B Procurement (Khareed), B2C Marketplace (Daraz), B2C Multi-Brand Store (Buyon.PK), B2C Procurement (Sehat.com.pk), and B2C Logistics (Cheetay), and own-branded store (KFC Pakistan)
Maria Umer, who runs #shemeansbusiness, an initiative by Facebook, talked about the various surveys she has conducted about people who want to start their online stores. She pointed out the 3 main facets of Marketing:
- Personal marketing
- Advertising
- Public relations.
Maria talked about various goals of online businesses and how her initiative helps bring small players together for sharing insights. Her end goal was to show the benefit of using Facebook and Instagram to market your startup
Omar Moeen Malik, a renowned name in the financial payments sector, took the stage. He recalled his college-going days in the US where one could literally pay via cheque for a doorstep pizza delivery order. Malik then stressed that the instrument itself is used by less than 50,000 individuals in Pakistan in today’s age.
Calling Iran a successful financial inclusion model, he told that approximately 100% of its population remains ‘banked’ to this day due to the contribution of its oil revenues going back to the population, under an original policy formulated by Ayatollah Khomeini at the start of the new regime.
35,000 stores in Pakistan have POS systems for card payments, while 1.5 million stores in Iran provide the same facility. He added that financial payments are facilitated heavily by smartphones.
110 million people in Pakistan own 150 million SIM Cards, of which a 1/3rd are being powered by smartphones. He said Single’s Day brought on $30 billion, which was revealed to him during an early morning phone call with his new investors. EasyPaisa brought on the first digital payment gateway through its in-store payments to facilitate e-commerce.
Saad Munir, the founder of Hexa Click and an admin of Pakistan Startups and E-commerce Pakistan, both of which are the pre-eminent Facebook Support Groups for their own industries, stressed the need for a well-defined funnel to determine the success of any operating e-commerce site. He asserted that the key to building a great product is to build a great team.
Panel Discussion: Customer Experience in E-Commerce
Saad also moderated a panel for Customer Experience in E-Commerce. He asked a few questions about the industry to each of the panelists. Umar Qamar of Export Leftovers stressed the importance of manufacturing in his model, and how many manufacturers cannot export their leftover stock. Adeel Shaffi talked about his own product, a shopping intelligence engine specializing in mobile phones.
Muhammad Khalid talked about Clicky.pk, a fashion e-commerce store, with funding provided by Souq.com, a prominent Middle Eastern fashion platform.
Mufeez Rana discussed AutoX and StationeryX, the prominent online stores for auto parts and stationery, respectively, which raised $100,000 each as seed funding.
Bilal Mumtaz then got up and talked about the importance of Digital PR as the foremost method of e-commerce marketing, with his experience of running FreshStart, a media buying platform for online tech blogs. He stressed that conversion rates, traffic figures, and overall brand receptions were uplifted more transparently and effectively through content marketing through blogs as opposed to ATL Marketing, Facebook Advertisement, Adwords, and other prominent methods.
Panel Discussion: Digital Healthcare Portal
He later then moderated a Digital Healthcare Panel which involved Nadir Mumtaz from Sehat.com.pk, Pakistan’s leading online pharmacy, Akbar Mumtaz, CMO of AugmentCare, a patient care portal, ShimailDaudArain, CEO of Maryam Memorial Hospital and HealthEquips, and Sarfraz Arshad, CEO of TalkHealth, a NIC graduate involved in Digital Healthcare.
Sehat is running on the forefront of the Fazal Din Family, involved in pharmacy, healthcare equipment distribution, and pharmaceutical manufacturing for the past 50+ years.
AugmentCare raised 1 million USD a year earlier and is working in the patient care space, capitalizing on the telemedicine forefront by hiring in-house and at-home doctors to facilitate patients.
Maryam Memorial Hospital is involved in the digital healthcare space by working on health tech products, while TalkHealth develops EMR systems for implementation in hospitals, currently employed in 20 institutions.
The final talk was given by Alina Zeeshan, a doctor turned AI Engineer, who talked about the best practices of AI in E-commerce and the scope it has for the Pakistani market.
The closing ceremony was a reflection of the appreciation of all the stakeholders and speakers in this conference, who traveled from as far as Karachi, Lahore, and Faisalabad to educate a captive audience on the do’s and don’ts of e-commerce in the country.
The New Chapter Heads
Chapter Heads of the Consortium were also announced – Bilal Mumtaz for Lahore and Hassan A Shahid for Islamabad.
Bilal was more than just a little relieved after the conference finished.
Being a supporting partner, organizing partner, moderator, and speaker is quite tough! I remember corresponding with vendors, getting all our materials arranged, talking to partners, and persevering day and night to hope for this conference to become a success.
“All three of us spent countless sleepless nights corresponding with each other, on updates and quirky ideas for making the conference a success. I remember the day my conference was to take place, I was on a phone call with Anum to let her know about the arrangements for the conference”, he further added.
I ensured her that her vision would not go unnoticed and the fact that we held a conference in and of its own was the real success. After a long day of talks and seminars at the conference, I couldn’t help but feel that all three of us – namely Anum – had changed the fabric of E-Commerce Conferences in Pakistan and would soon go on to do more to change the course of history in this sector.
Anum had a few words to say herself.
The idea behind creating this community is to bring all e-commerce businesses, stakeholders, and enthusiasts to one forum where we can connect, collaborate and learn. E-commerce in Pakistan is still in a nascent stage but there is no doubt that the future is bright, and that only can happen if all stakeholders brainstorm together towards a better future.
Talking about the event’s success and the efforts put in by the team, she said:
Arranging an event in another city was never going to be an easy task, but team members like Bilal and Hassan made it possible and the event ended up being super successful. All in all, we have made it clear that we are actively looking for more ideas and collaborations so that we may work in the future for the betterment of the e-commerce industry in Pakistan.
Meetup 2019
ECom Connect is having a meetup in Karachi at the HQ on the 29th of April, 2019, from 5-7 PM. Umar Qamar, CEO of Export Leftovers, will be the Guest of Honor.
Details about the event can be found here. Registration is mandatory, RSVP through here.
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ProPk should be arrange Meetup with Commenter person at feasible location.
when will be conference in Islamabad…and how to register for it..
The next conference after this will be in Lahore