
In Bangladesh, the majority of e-commerce now happens on Facebook - gyre007
https://restofworld.org/2020/bangladesh-economy-runs-on-facebook/
======
oefrha
To be clear I know nothing about Bangladesh, but obvious contradictions cast
doubt on this piece of reporting.

An obvious one: subtitle says

 _In Bangladesh, there is no Amazon. There is no eBay. If you want to buy a
dress or a crested finch from the comfort of your home, you have to use
Facebook._

Then somewhere in the article:

 _The phenomenon has grown so much over the years that the number of stores on
Facebook now eclipse the number of sellers on local e-commerce websites like
Evaly, Ajkerdeal, or the Alibaba-acquired Daraz._

It links to this Daraz site, so I checked, and sure enough, there's a women's
dresses category: [https://www.daraz.com.bd/womens-
dresses/](https://www.daraz.com.bd/womens-dresses/) Of course there's no
crested finch category, but it's not like you can buy live birds on Amazon or
Ebay.

So, there's no Amazon or Ebay, but there are smaller online marketplaces (yes,
at least the Daraz site is an online marketplace, it says "open your online
store now" on its home page) selling things sold on Amazon and Ebay. How is
this qualitatively different, and why does the author try to paint a picture
where Facebook login is required (for things that aren't live birds)?

Then there are poorly explained claims like

 _all an aspiring entrepreneur needs is an internet connection and around $350
to cover startup costs_

Why does starting a facebook page/group and accepting cash on delivery cost
$350 upfront? <s>Registration/license?</s> (No, "most sellers are not
licensed".)

~~~
lopis
I'm always surprised when garbage articles like these make it to the top of
HN. I guess HN is not immune to "i only read the title" kind of threads. And
since it sounds like an anti-facebook kind of article, it gets HN's blessing,
and off to the top it goes.

There was one more thing you missed that is not explicitly in the article. In
virtually any country there are groups on facebook to buy pretty much
anything, including live birds. Is Bangladesh really so different?

~~~
kzrdude
I'm not sure if you think it's legitimate or not, but one of the effects of
upvoting a story on hacker news, is that the thread stays around on the front
page, and the discussion grows.

Users can upvote stories either because the story itself or because of the HN
discussion thread; and it's often the latter that we come to this site for,
isn't it?

Isn't that legtimate, to upvote something if you already like or think you'd
like the to read the discussion about it?

Irrelevant note: This story didn't earn my vote.

------
ovebepari
A Bangladeshi here. Let me make something clear first:

\- Facebook doesn't handle the transactions (yet), some mobile banking is used
for transactions.

\- Facebook works because you can sponsor a video of your product explaining
the condition and people are very skeptic here about things, so video works,
pictures like amazon don't.

\- It's still a developing country and people like offers and facebook reaches
bigger audience/customers.

\- People do comment on Facebook, great for honest product reviews.

One might think of Bangladesh's GDP and think things are good. To be honest
things are better than before but that GDP amount is inflated by the riches.
We're still an agricultural country starting to make our way through the
intellect based economy.

Hope that helps.

------
aniforprez
In a way it's definitely fascinating to see how enterprising people have taken
advantage of available resources to set up business ventures

But I can't deny it's all a little concerning. The stuff about exploiting
animals, insecurities (the fairness cream stuff), skirting government
regulations (wonder what led to the credit card restrictions) etc. Then again,
I can't pretend to know about the life of a Bangladeshi so though I may
silently judge, I admit it is borne of ignorance

I'm unaware of the local startup scene but I hope in a similar vein to
Flipkart in India, someone starts a way for these people to move away from the
controlling influence of Facebook and sell on more regulated spaces

------
nathancahill
One interesting advantage that I didn't see mentioned in the article is that
Facebook data is often included for free in mobile phone plans, or as part of
a "Social Media" package that's cheaper than other data.

~~~
mmsimanga
This is true in parts of Africa I live and visit. Network providers sell data
bundles specifically for Facebook, Whatsapp and Twitter. These social media
data bundles are way cheaper than "normal" data which enables you to visit the
"Internet". So much news and business networking happens on Whatsapp you might
as well call WhatsApp and Facebook the internet for most people in these
countries.

~~~
yesenadam
Yep, I have a lot of friends in the Philippines who I chat with on Facebook.
Many of them, probably a large majority, don't have email or internet access
on their phones apart from that. It's a free deal that comes with the phone.

~~~
baby
Reminds me that we used to have something similar in France a long time ago.
Some websites came for free with your mobile plan. I think it was whatsapp and
fb too?

------
amelius
We must put an end to gatekeeping behavior.

The free market has its flaws but having your market (or your entire economy!)
regulated by a large corporation really is the worst of both worlds.

~~~
shp0ngle
That's actually the exact opposite of what's happening.

Facebook enables people with little knowledge of e-commerce to just open a
shop with a few clicks. All the selling happens in messages.

What's your proposed alternative? Some government-sponsored app that has the
same features as Facebook? Cool. Try that and let me know how it goes in
Bangladesh.

If it wasn't Facebook, it would be some other large centralized system.

Maybe it would be India-based, or China-based, though.

~~~
monadic2
Huh apparently all I need to do to justify literally any business model a)
have a small mountain of cash and b) make it convenient. People will just give
up on trying to imagine a way to do things better. Why bother when I already
do things as well as anyone can imagine?

~~~
blantonl
Making a business transaction convenient typically involves a process of
imagining a way to do things better.

~~~
monadic2
Does it? Not from my experience on either side of the transaction.... in my
eyes all of the “innovation” facebook has produced (along with every other
large tech company) has been straightforward, by the book scaling of extant
business processes with technology.

Anyway if there’s a process it can hardly be called imagination now can it?
It’s just human-level algorithms fed by cash.

If you can’t imagine how to improve this you’re certainly lacking for either
observational skill or bound by some dogmatic worldview.

------
ShorsHammer
There's a staggering amount of endangered wildlife trade occurring openly on
facebook in developing countries. Monitoring groups have a tough time breaking
into these things due to the gated nature of the platform and after that
paranoid private groups.

Do hope FB one day tries to take this seriously as they are the only people
who can realistically access this content completely, law enforcement is more
reactionary than proactive on these events and tend to miss the small windows
of opportunity, there's plenty of people happy to offer up tooling for
autodetection of illegal wildlife trade activities.

------
fardeem
Fellow bangladeshi here. Its been very interesting to see the comments on this
post and it gives me lots to think about.

I will say, having operated these facebook based businesses, it is literally
the worst and I can't wait for something else to take its place.

------
varbhat
I think that this is extremely bad to rely on large corporation lik FB to
control the economy.

But,i also think that it is not the mistake of people because they are forced
to sell like this by society.

Imagine selling items to people on Unknown Social Media Platform in
Bangladesh. Is it possible? No, because people are not using it. FB is popular
for selling because, society uses it more than other platforms in Bangladesh.

So,some other third party E-Mart company(other than FB) probably of their
country should notice it and solve the platform. Government's help can also be
of great use.

------
beholder1
Power is ability to make people do what you want. It can be measured in money.
Facebook has lots of it, like it or not.

~~~
sradman
The article falsifies your assumption about Facebook’s strategy and tactics in
Bangladesh:

> The wording was intended to circumvent a Facebook algorithm that, to prevent
> wildlife trafficking, automatically takes down posts with “buy” or “sell” in
> the description.

~~~
luckylion
That's because Facebook obviously does not care. They remove the "buy" or
"sell" posts due to laws, not because they themselves have issues with
wildlife trafficking.

If FB did care, they'd not have a problem shutting it down until you have to
go into really obscure code to pass by their systems, at which point it gets
useless, because that code isn't known by the other side.

~~~
sradman
> That's because Facebook obviously does not care.

I seem to lack the ability to see what you find obvious. Perhaps we differ in
what counts as supporting evidence or maybe our starting assumptions are
drastically different.

~~~
luckylion
Do you believe that Facebook is capable of adding a similar filter to match
"to change hands"? If they were capable, what could the explanation be for why
they don't?

~~~
disgruntledphd2
Because there are many, many langauges and idioms in the world, and AI isn't
good enough to do this accurately at the moment.

Given that Bangladesh is pretty poor and small, the likelihood is that if they
were to pour resources into it, eventually the business would pull out of the
country, as it wouldn't be profitable.

Note that if they block to change hands, then people will start using another
idiom, so a mere filter isn't going to accomplish much here.

~~~
hoseja
Bangladesh may be poor but it certainly isn't small. It's the eighth most
populous country!

~~~
disgruntledphd2
Apologies, I (unconsciously, I guess) weighted by advertising revenue in my
head.

I should probably stop doing that.

------
awinter-py
e-commerce via social media terrifies me because

1\. my buying history is an unfair advantage for ads that want to burrow into
my brain

2\. payment processors can make money without selling data!

businesses should have to pick 'paid or free' and not share behavioral data
across that wall

'F-commerce' is right

------
devin
FWIW, Alibaba is also a player in Bangladesh.

------
behnamoh
what am I supposed to do with this information?!

------
mister_hn
that is obviously horrible.

