Why Enhancement in Logistics is Significant for Better Growth of E-Commerce Industry in Pakistan?

The e-commerce industry in Pakistan is proliferating for the last few years while building the trust of the customers in online shopping. In this fast-moving era, when it becomes difficult to take out time even for the grocery every month, the online marketplaces like Daraz has made it convenient for the customers to order online anything they want. With the development of the e-commerce sector in Pakistan, the challenges to meet are more prominent and need to be addressed at the right stage so that it doesn’t leave any loophole in the system. From placing orders online to the package delivery, everything needs to be carried out efficiently to keep the progress of the e-commerce industry inflow.

As Daraz is the biggest online marketplace in Pakistan with over 15 million products available for the customers, it is striving hard to shape the process flawlessly to be a significant contributor towards the development of e-commerce sector in the country while strengthening the trust of customers. However, among so many factors essential to keep the system working, the primary role is assigned to the logistics. In case, if any flaws occur at this part, it will instantly break the customers' trust from online shopping, thus disrupting the growth of the e-commerce industry.

With the consideration of this importance of logistics companies specifically in terms of handling and delivering the packages responsibly, Daraz has taken a significant step of organizing round table conference between Daraz and 3PL companies. The conference was held on that was held on Thursday, October 8th, 2020, at the new Daraz’s head office in Karachi.

It was undoubtedly a great initiative taken by Daraz as it happened for the first time in the history of the Logistics Industry that all the significant players from 3PLs and DEX gathered on one platform. The idea was to discuss the challenges and gaps that persist in the logistics part of the E-Commerce industry and how they can be overcome, along with exploring new avenues and areas to collaborate.

While talking to the conference, Qasim Saya - VP Commercial at LCS, expressed his opinion that "There is a significant change and cultural shift in progress and the logistics companies are continuously gearing their efforts to build trust because the customer demands and expectations continue to evolve."

He further emphasized on the importance of building an escrow model by working with Fintechs to advance the process of reverse logistics.

Farrukh Nadeem, Director E-Commerce Solutions at TCS, said that “Customer experience starts with customer’s expectations management therefore it’s very crucial to set the right tone with the customer from the very start and if we consistently keep doing the right things, it would be a win-win for all parties”.

These points are definitely to ponder upon to build a strengthened system by levelling the customers’ requirements or expectations with the responsible services by logistics companies and maintaining the reputation of a mega online marketplace like Daraz.

Ali Akhai, the Head of Daraz Express, emphasized that to build trust, it is essential to understand the concerns of the customer, adding that it is critical for delivery agents to be informed of the processes of return and refunds in case a wrong product is delivered to a customer. Logistics works as the backbone of e-commerce industry and any flaw or negligence at this part would be causing trouble for the online marketplaces like Daraz and even the logistics companies would be facing challenges in terms of maintaining a reputation in the market.