With the news of Pakistan Post entering the arena, 2019 looks all shades of promising for Pakistan’s e-commerce industry. On Saturday, the Federal Minister for Communications and Postal Services, Murad Saeed inaugurated the first mobile application offered by the service. The application features complaint handling, track and trace, e-commerce, delivery and collection, tariff, post office locations, post codes and all other information about postal services.
Speaking at the occasion at the ECO Postal Staff College, the Minister highlighted that with the streamlining of its services, Pakistan Post is all set to expand its operations. Most notable of these expansions is the announcement to step into the e-commerce domain.
Saeed pledged that the public department is set to make an entry into the e-commerce business by January 15th, 2019. He highlighted that the government is already in talks with various brands for facilitating their business with a COD model. Saeed added:
“The Pakistan Post has the capacity and commitment to deliver for online vendors for their cash on delivery products with proof of delivery and prompt reconciliation of their payments. Many international web portal operators have shown their interest to enter into the Pakistani market with the Pakistan Post as their delivery partner.”
It is pertinent to point out that the work to develop Pakistan Post as a mobile finance company had been in progress since a couple of years now, and we’ve been covering the journey since the start. Rightly identified, given its size and reach Pakistan Post has a huge potential. The move can not only impact the local e-commerce industry, but it can potentially open up international markets to Pakistani e commerce players as well.
Furthering the agenda of e-commerce participation, Saeed shared that with an established network of 12,000 post offices across the country Pakistan Post is joining the country’s logistic market formally from 23rd March 2019. Pakistan’s logistics market is over $34.2 billion at present, and is currently growing at a rate of more than 18% per annum. This development scheduled for only a few weeks later, may translate into a direct death sentence for the lethargic and unchallenged logistic players in the e-commerce sector.
It is significant to point out that Pakistan Post also has a banking license and this, coupled with the new initiatives, can be a game changer for the Pakistan’s e-commerce sector in the coming days.
In addition to the e-commerce and logistics project launches lined up for 15 days from now, in January 2019, Pakistan Post on Saturday announced a couple of other initiatives starting right away. The mobile application has come with a tracking & tracing services via RFID stickers. Also initiated are a couple of pilot projects launched in multiple cities, which include:
Source: https://pakwired.com/pakistan-post-reshaping-pakistans-e-commerce/