Cellbazaar, Burgeoning Mobile Marketplace of Bangladesh

CellBazaar, Burgeoning Mobile Marketplace of Bangladesh Abstract CellBazaar, MIT Media Lab project, is the biggest mobile based online marketplace in Bangladesh. It is nothing but a platform that contains the information of its customers who are willing to sell their products or services and buyers or people at large go through that information posted by the sellers to search out the product serve their interest best. Cellbazaar is in service industry as well as in IT industry.

The main goal of providing service of this organization is to provide error free services to the customer and to fulfill that goal all the activities are run in the organization.

Introduction

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CellBazaar, often called the Mobile Craigslist of Bangladesh, has provided a martketplace to buy and sell goods and service to Bangladeshis for three and a half years now. Since then, the service has grown and has now user base of just under 4 million. Cell Bazaar processes 1000 posts/day, and founder Kamal Qadir was chosen by the World Economic Forum as a Young Global Leader in 2009.

It started its operation in June 2006 that allows people to buy and sell over mobile phones. Nearly 23 million Grameenphone users can buy any agricultural product, such as rice, fish, or chicken, as well as large-scale purchases like an apartment, land, or car, and consumer goods such as a television or refrigerator. People can also offer services, like tutoring, house rent etc. The service is run by the customers: they post items for sale, delete items after they are sold, adjust prices if items fail to sell, and do much more besides.

Initially started working in mobile phone platform now it has entered into the Web platform to reach the global audience.

Overview of Cellbazaar in Bangladesh

Idea Generation Kamal Quadir, Bangladeshi by born, originally designed CellBazaar at MIT as a graduate student. In developing countries, the limits on communication technology hinder business. People must travel great distances to get market information. Isolated and uninformed, farmers, traders and business people have little information, and thus no power to bargain with middlemen.

CellBazaar was devised to solve this problem. Using this platform, everyone gathers market information so they can make smart business decisions. In the process they provide a birds’ eye view of the entire market for both sellers and buyers (Qadir K. & Mohaiemen N. , 2009). 2. 2 Formation Kamal Quadir registered CellBazaar as a U. S. business and moved into rapid-action mode. He raised the necessary capital from Omidyar Network, Barred Rock Capital and Gray Matters Capital in the U. S.

Soon, they had registered the company as a Foreign Direct Investor—a process which is normally quite byzantine in Bangladesh had filed a patent application with the Bangladesh patent office, and had signed an exclusive partnership with Grameenphone, the country’s largest mobile operator with 60% market share (Qadir K. & Mohaiemen N. , 2009). 2. 3 Growth of Cellbazaar Over the year 2010, Grameenphone is the largest mobile phone operator in Bangladesh with over 23 million subscribers.

Dubbed the “Craigslist of Bangladesh”, it is a mobile application that brings buyers and sellers together in a mobile environment where they can publish and retrieve information on goods or services. 35,396 posts for multiple products in 141 categories are available for viewing, ranging from livestock to education services to agri-produce to electronics. Users pay standard SMS, WAP and voice rates to access the service. Accodring to the world’s number one web site rating organization Alexa the web page of the CellBazar is in the 53th position in Bangladesh and its 98. % of the browse are made from Bangladesh. According to the www. alexa. com (viewed 16 December 2010, at BDT 2:58 pm) daily page viewed of cellbazaar is 13,011 and its daily advertisement cost is $238. 12. The diversity of products posted has resulted in constant innovation and change. As the company grows and matures, it looks set to be the first Internet model startup in Bangladesh’s history, with global media interest, local imitators, overseas expansion plans, and international-standard management and staffing.

Platform of Operation

SMS has been phenomenally popular since its introduction in Bangladesh. CellBazaar leverages the simple, widespread power of SMS to bring the market to phone. Wireless Application Protocol (WAP): WAP is the next generation of mobile phone technology. 12% of all mobile sets in Bangladesh are already WAP-enabled, and this number is growing rapidly. WAP provides an even faster experience as you browse a simple graphic menu to access the entire market space.

WEB: WEB version shows the entire market at a glance on computer screen. Anyone with internet access can browse the market, and post items for sale. Interactive Voice Response (IVR): Any Grameenphone user can dial 3838 and listen to the latest items on the market in Bengali. After dialing 3838, users choose from 8 categories: Jobs, Mobile Phones, Agriculture, Motorcycle, Car, Electronics, Computers, and To-Let. Every few hours, users will hear new information through this service. Grameenphone (GP): Grameenphone is the largest mobile telecommunication operator in Bangladesh by revenue and subscribers base. It incorporated on October 10, 1996 as a private limited company and commenced service on the independence day of Bangladesh- March 26, 1997. Grameenphone Community Information Centre (GP CIC): It is a shared premise for both Cellbazaar and GP. Katalyst: Katalyst aims at poverty reduction via private sector growth, mainly through small & medium enterprises (SME) development.

KATALYST is funded by DFID, SDC, Swedish Sida and Canadian CIDA and is implemented by Swisscontact and GTZ International Services and works together with the Bangladesh Ministry of Commerce Thakral: It is a Joint Venture between the Thakral Group of Singapore (operating in 30 countries) and Esquire Group of Bangladesh. Thakral is IBM's exclusive representative in Bangladesh and works on software development on mainframes, data warehousing, etc. BracNet provides enterprise organizations with a high-speed dedicated Internet access via a Cisco Powered backbone engineered for mission critical data.

It is an affiliation of Brac, the world’s largest non-government organization BRAC Bank Limited (BBL): BBL with institutional shareholdings by BRAC, International Finance Corporation (IFC) and Shorecap International has been the fastest growing Bank in 2004 and 2005. The Bank operates under a "double bottom line" agenda where profit and social responsibility go hand in hand as it strives towards a poverty-free, enlightened Bangladesh. Prothom Alo: Bangla daily newspaper “Prothom Alo” is Bangladesh's largest circulation Bengali language newspaper and a key influence on cultural trends.

CellBazaar provides Prothom Alo classifieds on the mobile phone. The Daily Star: English daily newspaper “The daily Star” is Bangladesh's largest circulation English language newspaper. CellBazaar provides Daily Star classifieds on the mobile phone. Section Three: Conclusion and Recommendation

Conclusion

CellBazaar is a virtual marketplace that allows buyers and sellers to connect with one another and buy and sell goods and services using their mobile phones.

CellBazaar enables entrepreneurs and small businesses in Bangladesh to start and grow operations in a market that wouldn't otherwise be available in their local community, thereby creating jobs, stimulating the economy, and delivering products and services that improve the lives of millions of poor people. The service is not just mobile classified ads but a social development service. It cuts outs the middlemen for buyers and sellers which means more profit and savings for them.

Recommendation CellBazaar successfully provides over 3. million buyers and sellers in Bangladesh masses of market information at their fingertips, unlike similar environments in developing markets. However, CellBazaar is limited to search facilities only. Its effectiveness in providing users with the full potential of mCommerce is restricted by two key factors:

1. A lack of a secure and trusted payment method to complete transactions on the system;
2. A lack of cost-effective, reliable infrastructure to permit delivery of goods to take place through the system.

In addition, a critical success factor that is required in order to enable transactions to be completed on the system is trust between parties: trust that sellers will deliver goods that fit the description and quality standards previously communicated, and trust that the buyer will make the payment. In other more sophisticated cellbazaar trusts is ensured by feedback mechanisms; this includes buyer and seller ratings, comment facilities, etc. A lack of policies which offer some kind of safeguards, should there be a breach in trust by either party will deter parties from engaging in transactions in an eMarketplace.

References

1. Qadir K. & Mohaiemen N. , “Cellbazar: A Market in your Packet”, innovation/mobile world congress, 2009, pp. 59-71
2. Stevenson. J. W. , “Operation Management”, McGraw-Hill Irwin, 2009, pp. 397-471
3. http://corp. cellbazaar. com/
4.  CB Amazon - lirneasia. net WEB IVR WAP SMS Platform GP BRAC Net Thakral Katalyst GPCIC Prothom Alo The Daily Star BRAC Bank Content Partners Technological Partners Educational Partners Core Partners Partners

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