Pakistan witnessed first E-commerce event- EcomX EcomX17 is the first exclusive E-Commerce event to take place in Pakistan. Organized by PASHA & PSEB and supported by Fishry& Microsoft, EcomX17 acted as a platform to gather all the experts, professionals and thought leaders in the field of E-Commerce in Pakistan to gather their thoughts, share experiences and work collectively towards growth of E-Commerce in Pakistan. Event was graced with the presence of esteemed speakers and Panelists from the industry and saw an overwhelming response from the attendees.
Event was attended by professionals from E-Commerce marketplaces (Yayvo, TCS Sentiments etc.) , E-Commerce enablers (Fishry, microsoft, Facebook etc.), Payment vendors (Finca&SimSim) and multiple known and upcoming brands. Event promised to act as a supporting ground for conducive policies towards E-Commerce in Pakistan and how collectively the market can be grown and more customer ease provided. Issues and challenges related to e-commerce in Pakistan were also discussed at the event and acted as a great networking platform for digital nomads.
The event started with the discussion on how the consumer behavior has shifted from desktop usage to dependence upon mobile phones to discover latest trends. The expert shared with the esteemed audience that how consumers in the USA spend 6 hours of a day on digital platforms and out of these 6 hours 3 hours are used on mobile phones, this is the highest amount of time spent on any media platform. Moreover, he also elaborated on the fact that how everyday 3billion opportunities or moments are created to engage consumers through mobile.
Moreover, he also elaborated on how video content is gaining popularity and is the new way of interaction as brands are moving away from static content. He concluded by talking about the growth of e-commerce and how 1.2billion people on Facebook are already connected with 1 business in a foreign country and there some huge opportunities for businesses to connect with a vast audience through the platform of e-commerce. Ali Khurshid, Facebook APAC A detailed description of the Facebook tools was discussed in the speech.
These tools can be used for taking a brand global with the help of e-commerce. Some of the tools included were: 1. Dynamic languages 2. Audience insights 3. 4. Facebook business 5. Instagram business A detailed case study of Daraz and a few other bands were also discussed during the session and how these brand have been able to achieve 85% increase in sales with the help of Facebook. Irfan Wahab, CEO Telenor He started his talk with listing the statistics of Pakistan’s connection users which comprises of 140million connections and how one-third of these people are connected through a smartphone, this number is likely to increase with the introduction of low priced smartphones in the market.
He also elaborated on the fact that by the end of 2018 how 80% of Pakistanis will have access to 4g. Various projects of Telenor helping the growth of e-commerce were included in the presentation and it was established that Telenor has 40million customers and 20million are connected through their banking services. Sadia Khurram, GM North Careem Discussion started with how Careem has brought the concept of a virtual market place to Pakistan and is available in 11 cities of the country and it promises to create 1million jobs by 2020.
Sadia also talked about Careem’s vision of women empowerment and how it has provided women with a safe platform for traveling as 60% users are women. Shoaib Khalil, Territory Manager Microsoft He talked about how 86% of CEOs consider digital platforms as their number one priority and how this decade has seen an advancement in technology to meetconsumerdemands. He also talked about how highly personalized offers with advanced analytics can be used to introduce e-commerce for businesses in Pakistan which are integrated with digital and analog flexibility.
It was concluded that Amazon has seen the highest change in market value of 1934% from 2006 to 2016. Barkaan Saeed, Chairman P@sha He concluded the event by elaborating the efforts of ministry of commerce and the government in order to boost e-commerce in Pakistan.There was a panel discussion during the event which was hosted by SheryarHydri, Secretary General, P@shaand the panelist included QasifShahid (CEO SimSim), Salman Hasan (CEO, TCS Ecom), Raza Rehman (COO Sefam) and Amir Sarfraz (Cofounder Fishry).
There was a detailed discussion on the challenges being faced to bring e-commerce to Pakistan and what can be done to bring more brands on board. All the expertise shared their experience of their respective fields and what should be done to bring this shift in Pakistan. EcomX17 has provided the expertise in the field of e-commerce a platform to come together and share their knowledge with others. Moreover, this event was a hit to network with the master of the field of e-commerce and was the first of many of the events to come.
