ISLAMABAD: The National e-Commerce Council has decided to form a focus group comprising experts to address the challenges and make Amazon a successful platform for selling Pakistani products to the world.

The Amazon platform will be available only for selling local goods abroad and Pakistani consumers will not benefit from the decision to purchase anything on the e-commerce site. This model is also applicable in China, Indonesia and many more countries.

Commerce Adviser Razak Dawood listed challenges for e-commerce in Pakistan including logistics and warehousing that needs to be dealt with. The focus group will hold monthly meetings to address these challenges. Briefing the media on opportunities to be available on the platform, Mr Dawood said private sector logistics companies have an opportunity to scale up businesses and develop international partnerships for making logistics perform for effective delivery.

Mr Dawood said the Amazon platform will give a boost to Pakistani exports and added that 40 exporters have already been registered.

“Thousands of jobs and entrepreneurial opportunities will be created. Our philosophy is to promote ‘Make in Pakistan’. I want to thank all my colleagues who helped us in achieving this milestone,” the adviser said.

He said logistics companies in the private sector will have to work efficiently. “Logistics are a big challenge. We are working on it,” he said. Pakistan Post is also going for automation and preparing itself for parcel deliveries, he added.

Globally, government-owned postal services transformed from message deliveries to parcel deliveries. However, in Pakistan, the post office has yet to fully transform with the global automation and changes in service deliveries.

Mr Dawood said standardisation was another challenge which will be tackled in a way to ensure sellers’ compliance to buyers’ demands. He said Amazon has its own internal quality checking mechanism and in case of any complain the seller will face the consequences.

The adviser said in case there is any complaint to Amazon regarding the quality or any other thing, the platform may dislodge the company from the selling list. “We are working on to ensure compliance in this crucial area,” the adviser said.

He said the focus will be made on creating awareness among SMEs. Successful overseas sellers on Amazon who are already registered and selling Pakistani Products have also agreed to have awareness sessions for Pakistani sellers to train them and facilitate them.

Mr Dawood said that the payment issues for selling the goods on platform were also resolved.

Published in Dawn, May 8th, 2021