As per the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD)’s Business-to-Consumer (B2C) e-Commerce Index 2020, published recently, Bangladesh came down from 103rd position (in 2019) to 115th position in terms of rankings even as Bangladesh’s ranking in 2018 index was at an impressive 88th.
According to the report, notwithstanding sharp rise in sales amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, the country (Bangladesh) had to come down 12 notches in 2020 index due to infrastructure deficiency.
However, amongst the South Asian countries Bangladesh was able to fare better than only Afghanistan (143rd) and Pakistan (116th) even as India moved up from 75th position in previous year to 71st position, while Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bhutan, respectively, held 87th, 113th and 114th position.
It may be mentioned here that the index scores 152 nations — countries are scored on access to secure internet servers, reliability of postal services and infrastructure, and the portion of their population that uses the internet and has an account with a financial institution or a provider of mobile money services — on their readiness for online shopping, worth an estimated US $ 4.4 trillion globally in 2018, up 7 per cent from last year.
