Buyer Protection is Key to Winning E-Commerce in Pakistan

The e-commerce industry in Pakistan has been on a long journey of creating awareness and establishing credibility among consumers. Until a few years ago, buying things online was looked upon with suspicion or rather questionably.

Despite the efforts made by a few key players to eliminate these challenges, purchases were limited to small ticket items as consumers felt hesitant about investing in high-value purchases without experiencing the product in real life at retail outlets.

Online shopping was more for ‘nice-to-have’ things, not prominent purchases. A considerable part of the problem was making sure that the primary customers of e-commerce platforms – the buyers – felt protected.

This changed drastically during the pandemic, resulting in accelerated growth for online shopping. Not having the option of physically visiting stores to buy things added to the boom with technology filling in the gaps for many to keep up with the ever-changing and evolving world around them.

Despite this growth, e-commerce still makes up close to 2% of the overall retail landscape in Pakistan. This clearly shows that the growth of e-commerce in Pakistan is not only imperative but inevitable. How fast this happens would be dependent on several factors, but the key would be to earn consumers’ trust by providing them with a seamless experience.

With this new era of digitization in Pakistan, Daraz has emerged and grown into the e-commerce market leader. They entered new spaces, while bringing accessibility and availability of products from a vast range of prices, categories, and brands to one of the largest young populations in the world.

During the recent 11.11 flagship sale event of Daraz, 20 million Pakistanis visited Daraz and ordered 5 million items. These numbers provide a good indication of how far e-commerce has come in the country. However, this journey has involved taking several steps and initiatives to win consumers over.

On the face of it, Daraz may be viewed as merely a platform but in reality, it is a full-fledged ecosystem that is built on multiple components and has helped ensure consistently smooth customer experience and resolution of complaints. As a marketplace that houses over 70% of sellers and dispatches hundreds of thousands of orders daily.

The scalability of the sellers can be assessed from the stats of approximately 35,000 sellers participating in Daraz’s 11.11 sale this year, out of which 40% were from outside of Karachi, Lahore & Islamabad, 18% were females and 30% were new sellers on Daraz.

Due to the sheer scale of the platform, it is not an easy task to keep a strict check on every delivery. In order to ensure Daraz’s buyers can be kept safe from any fraudulent practices, the company spends an average of $35,000 per month on buyer production.

In case of any damaged or falsely advertised order received, consumers can claim a full refund. Moreover, a major concern that consumers have when shopping online is not having the option of complaining about a wrong or damaged product they may receive. Daraz has worked consistently to tackle this challenge.

During this year’s mega 11.11 sale campaign, Daraz handled close to 10,000 complaints with 91% of the complaints received being resolved within 72 hours, and an average resolution time of 36 hours.

Their Marketplace has a 7-day return policy, whereas Daraz Mall which serves as an extension of the e-commerce channel for several leading brands offers 14-day returns. Disputed products are collected from consumers’ homes directly for their convenience, which means there is no unnecessary hassle of shipping orders back to users.

With almost 100,000 marketplace sellers from all over the country listed on the platform, Daraz has been encouraging users to share their reviews and ratings to help sellers gain credibility through various incentives such as vouchers and giveaways.

This year, 85% of the products bought during 11.11 had a 5-star rating.  This helps consumers make informed decisions, and provide sellers with direct feedback to improve their products and services.

Fulfilled by Daraz (FBD) is a one-of-its-kind service that is launched exclusively by Daraz that ensures all the orders are safely packed and quickly dispatched straight out of Daraz Fulfillment Centers.

Through FBD Service, a team of experts ensures that the orders are smoothly processed, as per requirements, packed properly, dispatched the same day, and delivered to consumers quickly with Express Delivery.

Rated by customers, Daraz’s delivery services’ satisfaction score accounts for 4.9 out of 5. During the 11.11 sale, Daraz’s riders delivered parcels to over 3,746 districts towns, and cities across Pakistan

Furthermore, Daraz has been investing heavily in maintaining the highest standards of sellers in its marketplace. Their team works closely with sellers to educate them and regularly interacts to get their feedback and introduce new policies that are beneficial for them and users accordingly.

Fraudulent sellers are closely monitored through Daraz’s Quality Control team against various variables such as returns, customer response time, timely processing of orders, and cancellations. In complaints against sellers, they are given warnings to fix their services. Those who fail to meet Daraz’s standards are then delisted.

Digital payments in e-commerce have been a challenge since most consumers still tend to opt for cash on delivery as they don’t feel safe using their bank cards on online platforms, despite the immense benefits of digital payments for our economic growth.

Daraz has been working rigorously in this area to build a secure payment system on its platform to provide consumers with ease of mind when paying online. They have partnered with schemes and banks to educate, incentivize, and encourage customers to use their cards and wallets.

During the 11.11 sale, 200,000+ users opted for digital payments from the 15 banks Daraz had partnered with. Besides offering discounts, they have been working on making the experience easier for customers to pay digitally.

For example, if you use the Daraz Wallet and are unhappy with your purchase, they can instantly give a refund whereas with cash it would take longer to come to someone’s bank account.