A Comparison of 7 Pakistani eCommerce Sites

Online Shopping in Pakistan

Interesting trends were recently revealed in an internet study carried out by P@SHA. E-commerce activities altogether are not amongst the 5 most common online activities in Pakistan. Users engaged in “buying a product online” account for 6% of all e-commerce activities. 45% of the users felt that shopping is very convenient via internet. Furthermore 33% believed that online store prices are lower as compared to physical stores. Cash on delivery (71%) was chosen by online buyers as a payment method while 22% chose Credit Cards.

Furthermore, statistics by a mobile survey company, Ansr.io says that internet users in Pakistan have reached 30 million and 15 million access the internet using their mobile phones.

Review of Pakistani eCommerce Sites

As you will read further, you will get a comparison of 7 online Pakistani eCommerce sites in terms of their website experience and retail store as a whole. A search was made for online Pakistani shopping websites operating in Pakistan. The existence of many websites came out of search engines, advertisements and reviews from the past. A list of 7 websites was made after short-listing those which sell products of at least 2 brands (e.g. Oxford & Levis) and have at least 3 product categories (e.g. tech gadgets, clothing & footwear) and those with better website experience. The experience ranking was done thoroughly and is shown below:

Further details were collected from the above websites for comparison purposes and details can be seen in the following table:

Since these are online retailers, ranking was mainly done on the website experience offered but other scores mentioned above were not ignored. The ranking (countdown to No.1) is given below:

7. Techcity.pk

Customer reviews and personal experiences suggest not-so responsible product dispatch team and poor return facilities for clothing category but nonetheless techcity.pk is a major tech store with wide product variety and 12 years of team experience.

6. SHOPDAILY.pk
The overall website experience is good but it loses score when it comes to brand variety. Their investments in advertising campaigns suggest they are going to be here, competing. This online store is owned and run by the owner of other known projects like tohfay.com and Dealsdaily.pk.

5. Symbios.pk
They sell wide range of tech products, providing discount deals known as “Jadoo Offer” everyday. This online store turned into serious business from a startup in a basement car garage. Symbios needs little improvements in information quality for products. Symbios attracts over 30,000 visitors daily. Of these, about 1% or 300 people place orders and 600 products are sold in a day on average. It has a good presence on online social networks which suggests good things about the store.

4. Homeshopping.pk
This store provides improved customer feedback services and has physical outlets in Karachi, Lahore, Rawalpindi and Peshawar offering wide category of products ranging from local merchandise to popular international brands. The website gives potential customers an interactive section for each product with ready-and-active staff that gives quick feedback to all queries. The website gets almost 1000 orders and more than 15,000 visits per day, majority of whom are returning customers. Homeshopping offers cash on delivery in more than 40 cities in Pakistan with own delivery staff as well. It has a low profile on social networking sites compared to other leading online stores.

3. Shophive.com
The fact that Shophive was revamped recently is one of the major reasons this site secured the third spot on our list. With its new optimized web design and its amazing discount/deal section it is attracting a lot of Pakistani e-shoppers. The service also offers an installment plan to its customers making it easy for them to pay for the more expensive items. However, this option is available for the customer in Lahore only, so far. Shophive is quite active on its social media pages and although most of their posts are promotional, the service does reply to the fans’ queries timely.

2. Kaymu.pk
Kaymu probably has the most product categories (from tech gadgets to perfumes) in store but that does not mean all its categories have huge variety of products. The portal is maturing some 1,000 transactions daily with an average turnover of Rs1.2 million per day. This website is working on the similar model of eBay in Pakistan whereby anyone can buy or sell all kinds of goods but the transactions take place through Kaymu.

1. Daraz.pk
This online store is doing better than all others so far. Its overall friendly website experience, product categories, brand variety, Facebook fans and online advertisement campaigns speak for themselves. Apparently the website delivers products worldwide. Customer reviews and experiences imply swift delivery, reasonable prices and satisfactory return services. The website also has reward points system for customers. In terms of absolute numbers, Daraz is delivering over 1,000 items daily, though there’s no indication of how much people are spending or how many orders those represent.

Thus, we reach to the end of our countdown. We hope you’ve enjoyed TechJuice’s little analysis on some of the best e-commerce services of the country. If you think your favorite site was left out of this article please leave a description (about the site and why it is awesome) in the comments section below for all our readers to see.

[DISCLAIMER: The list is based on results of a survey that was conducted. The respondents included Pakistani e-shoppers.]

Do you buy products online? What is your best choice for shopping online? What matters to you most if & when you shop online? Are you optimistic about the future of online shopping in Pakistan?

Also see:
Shophive offers Installment Plan to its Customers
Kaymu.pk Celebrates its First Anniversary!
Lunch with Shayan Tahir, Founder of Homeshopping.pk
Popular E-Commerce Websites in Pakistan

Wajahat Khan- The author blogs at Apricot Post. He can be reached on Google+ and Twitter. (Edited by: Nada Zain)