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In Bangladesh, the majority of e-commerce now happens on Facebook

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Re: In Bangladesh, the majority of e-commerce now happens on Facebook

#41

Post by dfxm12 »

lopis wrote: post #21
oefrha wrote: post #19

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 ec…

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, inc…

Luckily, the website provides us with flag & hide features in case you want to pop an article out of your front page or if you want to ask the mods to take a closer look at it.

Re: In Bangladesh, the majority of e-commerce now happens on Facebook

#43

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

hoseja wrote: post #28
disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 fil…

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

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

I should probably stop doing that.

Re: In Bangladesh, the majority of e-commerce now happens on Facebook

#44

Post by Hankenstein2 »

oefrha wrote: post #19

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 ec…

I think the article and headline are fine for HN. I clicked on it and read it and am not sorry I did. I read the Amazon and Ebay comment to mean just that! There are no other juggernaut e-commerce sites that have dominated the market, not that there are NO other e-commerce sites.

I find that Facebook has managed to fill the void without explicitly being an e-commerce site interesting.

Re: In Bangladesh, the majority of e-commerce now happens on Facebook

#46

Post by chillacy »

hankchinaski wrote: post #20
amelius wrote: post #3

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.

there is no gatekeeping, facebook is just solving a distribution problem for many ecommerce owners and as a store owner i have to say it’s the most cost effective ways to reach customers

In China wechat serves a similar role, especially in rural areas. You can pick up fresh veggies and meat directly from farmers on wechat, it's like a virtual bazaar.
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