Opportunities and Challenges of M-commerce Adoption in Bangladesh: An Empirical Study

Abstract

The objective of this research is to explore the opportunities and challenges of mcommerce adoption in Bangladesh. An empirical study is conducted to see the user's perception on this issue. The country has experienced a sheer adoption of mobile phone, around 70%, one of the biggest advantages for m-commerce adoption. Findings indicate a positive trend of m-commerce uptake in Bangladesh. More than 60% of the survey participants used mobile internet although mobile broadband, the key feature for m-commerce, has not been available in the country until the time of the study. Adoption of mobile financial services is also promising; for example, 40.5% used mobile balance transfer. Users of mobile billing (28%), mobile ticketing (21%), mobile remittance (16%) and mobile banking or SMS banking (10%) are also growing. Network infrastructure has continually been upgraded with the advance technologies including the recent launch of 3G mobile network. Study found that the lack of trust and literacy are the two major challenges of m-commerce growth in Bangladesh. Stakeholders need to make strategic plans to deal with these challenges and opportunities for rapid uptake of m-commerce in Bangladesh.

Migration and financial transactions: factors influencing mobile remittance service usage in the pandemic

“…Mirabaud (2009) also investigated migrant's remittances and mobile transfer in emerging markets and highlighted a further need for empirical investigations as under the fragile conditions of migrant working conditions and the high risk of their income loss to the livelihood of their dependents. Emergent markets started offering mobile remittance service such as Bangladesh (Rahman and Sloan, 2015), Kenya (Misati et al, 2019) and Zimbabwe (Mutsonziwa and Maposa, 2016) but the migrant situation in Asia poses a variety of challenges around mobile financial technology acceptance as opposed to African context. The services received government approval only at the start of the COVID crisis and the technology is nascent while the economic situation of migrants is fragile.…”