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Selling on Facebook: a boon for startups

Abdullah Mamun
Facebook users now have better options to try. They can market and sell their products I through the social networking site, without the need for investing in a showroom.
The concept already dubbed as Facebookcommerce is simple - post ads on a Facebook page, get orders from customers over phone and sell the products.
Delivery persons or couriers can take the products to the customers and payments can be made through mobile financial services or cash on delivery.
This unique feature has made the model quite popular and opened new business opportunities for startups.
In Bangladesh, there are around 4,000 small entrepreneurs who are doing business using their Facebook pages as a marketplace. Munir Hasan, founder of a group with 33,000 members, said small entrepreneurs cannot always give ads via conventional media outlets as they entail huge costs.
"Facebook is an easy option for them."
He said at least 500 members of their group, which promotes entrepreneurship, started their own business and 50 of them are doing it successfully Faroah Tasnim, an entrepreneur of this sort, opened a page, Glitterage, to sell kameez and trousers, mainly targeting working women.
More than 30 products were sold in two weeks generating revenues worth Tk 50,000, the business graduate said. "I didn't spend a single penny on marketing the products," she said.
Currently there are 1.04 crore Facebook users in Bangladesh and 80 percent of them are active or open their pages at least once a month, said Drabir Alam, associate director of Cookie Jar, a digital marketing agency.
The number of Facebook users is rising very fast, he said. There were 63 lakh users at the end of last year, going up from only 38 lakh in December 2012.
SM Mustafizur Rahman Bayazid, owner of virtual outlet Viper Leather, started his business in 2011 through a Facebook page. Later he created a website to optimise visibility of his products. Now he has a factory at Badda and a shop at Shahjadpur, Gulshan in the city.
Almost all products can be sold through Facebook pages - from clothes to food items and electronic gadgets to sacrificial animals. Alam of Cookie Jar said one can also put up paid-advertisements on Facebook at only $1 and can reach at least 500 to 1,000 people.
But in case of costlier ads, advertisers cannot spend more than $3,000 through international credit cards for advertisements on Facebook or sites like it, as rules do not allow such transactions, he said.
The government should issue a guideline for online advertisement, he added.