Despitethe huge growth in internet penetration in Bangladesh over the past decades,approximately 4 to 5 million small retailers (dokandar) holds more than 98% ofall Bangladesh retail  and trade market,which directly connect 180+ million population of Bangladesh.


Inthe decades-old traditional systems, every week, these retailers buy 35% oftheir shop essentials: talking to 50-60  different single branded salespeople for placing orders. For the rest ofthe 65 % of their shop essentials: they need to close their shop and investtime in traveling to the wholesale market, negotiate, buy, and then managelogistics to bring products to their shops. Otherwise, they need to buy fromthe brokers, who provide them this service, with an undisclosed premium of   20-50%.

chowkbazar.com,an online wholesale marketplace for small retailers, launches in Dhaka with anambition to solve these problems for small retailers. Small retailers can buyall of their business goods from chowkbazar.com without leaving their shops.

 

Likewisetraditional wholesale market, a small shop owner can search for his desiredproducts, price, quantity with different brands and sellers, even he can findthe prices of a single product offered by many different sellers, whichultimately give him a scope to buy the best product with least possiblewholesale price in Bangladesh.

 

Normallythe majority of the small shop owners aren’t tech-savvy. To make themcomfortable with the online buying phenomenon as well as placing orders onregular basis, chowkbazar.com has route-wise dedicated sales executives whovisit the small retailers weekly to check their stocks and help them placeorders. Once you place an order, it is then forwarded to the sellers,Chowkbazar’s delivery person then picks up the package from sellers anddelivers it to the small shop owners. From placing an order to delivery, thewhole process takes 6-48 hours.  

 

Themost important benefit the small retailers getting from chowkbazar.com is that:they can directly purchase the products from the manufacturers, importers,which eliminate the middleman i.e dealer, distributor, brokers, etc. and cansave 5-50% of their procurement cost.

 

Toavail, chowkbazar.com charges a delivery fee of 0-10 taka (depending onproducts) per kilogram as a delivery cost, which is the current main revenuestream of chowkbazar.com.

 

Currently,chowkbazar.com is available only in Dhaka and covers mobile phone, mobileaccessories, electrical, lighting, hand tools and a number of verticals. Thecompany, however, gradually plans to get into medicine and grocery as well asexpand its services across the country.