We ekShop, are a proud member of the a2i family. ekShop was formally launched in 2019 as the world's first integrated, Government-assisted e-Commerce architecture model, bringing immense pride to Bangladesh. ekShop has since played a crucial role in fostering a healthier, efficient, and smarter local e-Commerce landscape. The concept of 'rural e-Commerce' was introduced by Rezwanul Haque Jami, the Head of Commercial Strategies at a2i, during his Key Note Speech at the 'Digital World 2016 Summit.
Rima, another girl who lived in the Southern region of Bangladesh, in a remote locality, 10 hours exhaustive road trip from Rangpur, crossing over 410 Kms. A very brave girl, Rima had already fought her way from child marriage by then. She decided to graduate and become an entrepreneur to sell locally sourced products. She also wanted to help other young girls of her village get empowered through working in her business initiative. All she needed was a medium to connect to the buyers and customers to become financially independent. With the advent of ICT boom globally, over the last one decade alone, we were always hearing about digitization, seeing the many blessings of e-commerce and how it has changed the way people transact and about the ecosystem, as a whole; but we did not quite think or talk about the massive gap it also created for people like Jui and the other remote village girls of the underserved community, who represent 61% of the 8th largest population in the whole world. These stories from the last mile people & their shattered realities gave birth to this idea of an assisted rural e-commerce platform, ekShop, a bridge to mitigate the digital divide, the very first of its kind, a bridge to mitigate this digital divide. ekShop was officially launched in 2019.
Looking back at the e-commerce industry of Bangladesh just 5 - 6 years ago, it was an entirely contrasting picture comparing to the thriving stature that is now! Back then, for anyone living in the rural parts of the country it was only a distant dream to buy anything online. Also, for a rural artisan to sell self-made products online was nothing but an impossible imagination. What is a simple luxury of just one click away for most of us in the city was an impossible rural dream. This is the point in time, when the real-life stories of two young girls of rural Bangladesh inspired & led to the birth of ekShop. Jui was from a remote area of Rangpur district, from the Northern part of Bangladesh. She lived with her maternal grandparents since she didn't have a father and her mother was one of the millions of Bangladeshi migrant workers in Middle-East. Like every other year, her mother had just sent her money to buy herself a new dress on the occasion of Eid, the most celebrated national holiday in our community. She was so excited, but buying a dress would mean someone, usually an elder male neighbor, having to take her to a shop, usually located within a densely populated vicinity in the district headquarter, very far away from her home. She did not have the liberty to do it alone, neither did she have any online platform to just order and receive the things she wanted to buy.
