Welcome to Oqab Riding
Retail analysts who follow only Western markets may be surprised to discover that e-commerce is not a dominant force everywhere – in Pakistan, for example, just 3% of retail sales are made online, despite this being a country where 70% of the population have smartphones. The biggest obstacle to increased adoption of online retail is that shoppers have had a poor experience when trying e-commerce – something that start-up logistics business Rider, which is today announcing a $3.1 million seed funding round, hopes to put right.
“When e-commerce arrived in Pakistan, the response of the logistics industry was to cut and paste the model it had used to deliver mail and freight for the past 150 years,” explains Salman Allana, founder and CEO of Rider. “It very quickly descended into disaster.”
