Pakistan Post enters ecommerce with its new facility

Federal Minister for Communications and Postal Services, Murad Saeed, took the stage at Pakistan Post Islamabad office on Saturday to announce “E-Commerce initiative at Pakistan Post.”

eCommerce is a growing industry in Pakistan and there is a need for a more affordable delivery method. By entering into a new domain, Pakistan Post hopes to increase its revenue and also improve its brand value. “This initiative will create a win-win opportunity for the Postal Services of Pakistan in the flourishing e-commerce market,” said Murad Saeed.

Director General Pakistan Post Dr. Naseer Ahmed used the event to highlight Pakistan Post’s capability to handle cash on deliveries. He said that the target was to gain the major chunk of e-commerce deliveries which would turn Pakistan Post into a profitable organization. He also discussed the various opportunities Pakistan Post has in regards with international partners, “Many international web portal operators have shown their interest to enter into Pakistan market with Pakistan Post as their delivery partner.”

The director assured that all efforts were being made to make the project a success. Murad Saeed laid out the plan saying that the first task would be to build the web portal. Here commercial ecommerce players would be able to use it to get access to the services.

The Naya Pakistan Post

The PTI government has been placing a lot of focus on redevelopment of the Pakistan Postal service. Last year, in October, it introduced a new service which saw your package being delivered to anyone in the country within 12 hours while being up to 50 percent more affordable than competitors. Then in January of 2019, ‘export parcel service’ was introduced which allowed people to send packages to over 72 countries at affordable prices. In addition to that, a brand new Android app was introduced in January to make it easier to use Pakistan Post.

eCommerce Boom

eCommerce business is rising in popularity in Pakistan. As per State Bank of Pakistan, the industry grew 93.7 percent last year, while accumulative ecommerce sales for both national and international merchants touched Rs. 80 billion. It was predicted that Pakistan’s ecommerce business will expand to over $1 billion in the year 2020. However, last year Yayvo predicted that Pakistan might cross the $1 billion mark earlier than expected.