“ROKOMARI.COM: Pioneering Excellence in Online Book Retailing”

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Introduction :
Rokomari is a fully online oriented e-commerce site and but also have their offline order services ( offline – 16297). Rokomari is considered as one of the most fascinating digital commerce companies in Bangladesh. Founded in 2012, this company is 100% locally built and managed without any external investment. Using growth lacking techniques, Rokomari has designed an innovative growth strategy and hence, this is considered as perfect bootstrapping case study in digital commerce for entrepreneurs in Bangladesh.

Brief history :
On January 19, 2012, a small dream was born in the heart of Bangladesh, the dream was named Rokomari.com. This dream was seen by five young people of Bangladesh, they are Mahmudul Hasan Sohag, Abul Hasan Liton, Ehteshamul Shams Rakib, Zubair Bin Amin and Md. Khairul Anam.
Their dream was to transform the bookselling culture in Bangladesh, making it easy to reach book buyers. Because they believed that in the light of the book, the wisdom of all people can be enlightened and that wisdom will come through the hands of the people of Bangladesh.
The funding came from the success of their previous project.
Then the online bookshop which started with 100 books, now has an entry of one hundred seventy thousand books. The company is selling about 2,000 books a day.
Chairman of the Onnorokom Group, Mahmudul Hasan Sohag, is the founder of the Online Bookshop Rokomari. The first entry in the book, Rokomari.com is On the Quest for Good Governance by Dr. Atiur Rahman. The first order book was ‘Eighteen’ by Imdadul Haque Milan. Cash on Delivery has been launched since 2012.

Why make ‘rokomari.com’ ?
However, people still crave the real-book experience that e-books cannot meet. Rokomari.com ‘s aims are to fulfil the following reasons:
● Easy Access to various kinds(genres) of books in one place
● Books can be bought online or offline ( Offline order service number- 16297 )
● Saving the time of bargaining over book prices, long hours of travelling
● Saving Transport Costs
● Offering Latest books and those on demand
● Promoting the spread of knowledge to people who cannot access it by reducing the gap in between.

StartUps :
Mahmudul Hasan Sohag told BBC that Rokomari’s venture was approached a little differently than my other ventures. Because three juniors from BUET came to me and Liton with some ideas. Then we started a project but it was not very successful. After we did a project called ‘Triple’ with Prothom Alo which was very successful. Then we get more inspired. I told about our three juniors, they first said that bro, can we work on the book right now? So the book thing is always fascinating to me and Liton, who was my partner, agreed. Liton again liked the name ‘Rokomari’ very much. Then we said ‘well try for it’. We discussed it ‘most likely’ around November-December. And February is just 2 months away. Within a very short time we set up the site, made some initial book entries and started boldly.

Early Stage

Mahmudul Hasan Sohag also told BBC that “In the beginning, we had to put in a lot of effort. We had a son named Tushar. Tushar used to wear Bangla Bazaar almost all the time. He had a ‘T-shirt’ with our style printed on it. Later it came to such a stage. The publishers called the snow as Rokomari. When we started the work only 1-2 months ago, the publishers didn’t take it seriously. Because every year, it happens in January many people meet with publishers and give ideas. So publishers think that they will not be found when February is gone. So they thought of us exactly like this. But we did not lose hope. We had to give a lot of effort to convince them. Few publishers have supported us since the beginning. But when they slowly saw that we are not a cuckoo, they slowly supported us. And here was a big struggle of our publishers but a large part but not very used to digital. So they don’t have the data and everything in digital format like this. So there is a lot of effort till today and going to upload the books that are entered looking side we can’t know real time because they don’t have inventory software. Do they have any book? That’s why the whole job was actually quite a challenge. It was possible to overcome the but initially. Along with that was our positive attitude which helped later. Secondly, when they started accepting us sincerely, things became easier slowly.

Growth Stage :
I would say that after about a year the ice begins to melt. It might be said. After about a year, they started to believe that maybe they were coming to work. Then it means till today but actually there are many struggles. There are many reasons why we are number of publishers. But many of our publishers are entered here, yet many thousands even we are traded fairly regularly. It also seems to be three to four thousand publishers. And I do daily purchases. We also purchase each and every day from around five hundreds publishers so it’s a huge number of publishers.The fact that Rokomari’s team is so big is the only reason we struggle there.


Current Status :
Currently, the market value of Rokomari is above thousands of crores. Rokomari has over 150 office across the country. At present, the report of several years has come that more than 12 lakh books have been sold every year. Majority of the total sales are in January and February compared to other months. And in the rest of the months, sales are average.
In the online bookstore business, Rokomari.com enjoys a monopoly. Market research conducted by the website has found that so far, Rokomari controls 80 percent of the online bookstore market. Other competitors are boibazar.com, boi24.com, bookshelve.com and Ryans Archive. Rokomari showcases over 50,000 different books on its website. Rokomari receives around 2000 plus orders each day.
Organizational Structure :
Ability – Customers can order books with a few clicks or a simple phone call. Reaches Dhaka City and Divisional cities within 24 hours and all other parts of the country within 72 hours. Even Rokomari.com caters to the needs of readers outside the country i.e. continentally.
Safety of Customers – If the book gets damaged or becomes unreadable during the time of delivery to the customer i.e. during the transportation period, then the entire responsibility lies with Rokomari.com. Again the book is properly delivered to the customer.
Secureness of Rokomari – ROKOMARI.COM has in place appropriate technical & security measures to prevent unauthorized or unlawful access to or accidental loss or destruction to user’s or visitors information.

Organizational Management: The Rokomari.com has a cluster of departments, energetic teams and team leaders. They work together as team member in an integrated management system.
The number of employees: There are 48 direct administrative personnel and more than 50 indirect and freelance employees working together.
Main offices: 2/2 E, Arambag, Motijheel, Dhaka-1000.
Introduction of all the departments :
Here is just a list of the e-commerce site. The website infrastructure requires daily maintenance so that their site is prevented from crashing and displaying errors includes –

  • Branding and Marketing
  • Commercial Department
  • Corporate Sales (from in-house book store)
  • Corporate Sales (from collection)
  • Customer Care Management
  • Data Analysis
  • Finance and Account
  • Gaphics and Creative
  • Growth Hack Department
  • Human Resource
  • Operation and Management
  • Product Management
  • Public Relations
  • Rokomari Courier
  • Software Engineering
  • Supply Chain Management
  • Technical supports & services
  • Tele sales

Unique Marketing Strategy :
1) Allows cash on delivery system
2) Short time – home delivery way
3) Payment process very easy – online banking such as Bkash, Nagad, Rocket.
4) Shipping cost low – 30 tk only or free delivery services
5) Discount offer upto 5 to 70% off price such as Shaesta Khaa offer(70%)
and Cashback offers.
6) Advertising base on customers behaviour.
7) Happy Return Policy
8) Gift Voucher Product
Challenges :
1) Risk of huge amount loss.
2) To achieve customers good review.
3) Delivering books to all customers safely
4) Production and delivery of books as per customer demand within stipulated time.
5) Gaining the trust of customers.
Problems in Rokomari :
★ Growing competition.
★ Increased customer expectations.
★ Insufficient customer engagement.
★ Low conversion rates.
★ Poor customer retention strategy.
★ Complicated process of product return & refund.
★ Limited scalability options.


Key Components of Rokomari.com :

Payment Process :
Cash on Delivery
Shopping cart – bKash, Nagad, Rocket
Shipping cost 30 Taka only
Discount (up to 20%)

Event Notification :
a. Advertising base on customer behavior
b. Rating
c. Reduction of price
d. Google, Facebook, Twitter


Rokomari Order Placement Process :

  1. Find desired books
  2. Select the product and click on ‘buy now’ button.
  3. Check on Plane Order button
  4. Provide delivery address
  5. The Delivery

Future Plan :
Rokomari has as much imprint on their future plans as the name. They originally gave the name so that in the future a variety of products could be placed alongside the book. What we see now Rokomari now stocks books along with stationery products such as notebooks, pens, calculators, canvases, paints and artist brushes etc and electronics products such as rechargeable fans, refrigerators, washing machines, electric induction, electric kettle, room heater, iron machine etc & various other products Electronics gadgets such as headphones, mobile accessories, power banks, smart watch, wrist watch etc & and daily life products & food items like trimmers, baby disposal diapers, organic honey, dates, kids toys, grinders, umbrellas, comforters, etc. along with computer related products viz. There are products like mouse, key board, modem, cable connector, router etc. The company is trying to add more variety of products in their future.

Conclusion :
Rokomari.com is now one of the leading e- commerce organizations in Bangladesh. It is indeed the biggest Online Bookshop of the country that helps saving a lot of time and sometimes money. Readers or students can buy books online through a few-clicks or convenient phone calls. With discounts and offers, readers can buy more from rokomari.com. Cash on delivery service brings the products at their doorsteps. Their customer support along with return and replacement policy adds extra confidence in buyers’ online shopping experience.
The fact that rokomari came all this way without any external affiliations and investment and local talents is praiseworthy and an exemplary successful e-commerce case from which future business enthusiasts have a lot to learn.

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