ONLINE RETAILER TO BRING BLACK FRIDAY TO PAKISTAN

Despite lack of internet penetration, billionaire brothers see an opportunity.

The billionaire Samwer brothers want to help introduce Pakistan’s shoppers to a local version of Black Friday, the November sales binge that kicks off the year-end holiday retail season in the US. It doesn’t matter that Black Friday is an American invention, said Bjarke Mikkelsen, co-chief executive of Daraz, the online retailer backed by the brothers’ incubator Rocket Internet SE. Daraz -operating in Pakistan, Myanmar and Bangladesh -will team with brands, wireless carriers and advertisers to offer “hundreds of deals” on Nov 27, he said.

“It’s a shopping event that was created in the Western world,” said Mr Mikkelsen, a former Goldman Sachs Group investment banker. “It’s a way of attracting many people with great deals and big marketing.”

Daraz, a three-year-old company, is getting more funding to bankroll that effort. On Tuesday, Daraz said it raised €50 million, including €20 million from CDC Group, a British government-owned investor trying to create jobs in Africa and South Asia. The rest came from Asia Pacific Internet Group, Rocket’s joint venture with Qatar mobile carrier Ooredoo QSC.

Daraz is taking a page from Amazon.com Inc and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, which have demonstrated how hefty one-time discounts and exclusive merchandise can get American and Chinese bargain-hunters to spend billions of dollars. Daraz also plans its own version of Cyber Monday, the online shopping event held three days after Thanksgiving, which occurs in the US on the fourth Thursday of November.

The plans are in the making even though Pakistan only has 30 million internet users. Neighbouring India has 10 times as many, according to the lobby group Internet and Mobile Association of India, yet Pakistan’s $232 billion economy is on track for its fastest pace of annual expansion since 2008.

Daraz draws 6 million visitors a month spending a combined €1 million on exclusive offers for Chinese-made smartphones, TVs and clothes, said Mr Mikkelsen. It sells via websites and mobile apps and almost half its deliveries venture beyond major cities, with smartphones as cheap as $20 being a top seller.

Building buzz will be key for a company that started out as a fashion retailer before expanding its wares in November 2014. It partnered with Google Inc to host Tech Mela, a 10-day online shopping event that preceded this month’s Islamic Eid al-Adha holiday.

There’s little point advertising online when internet penetration is so low, he said. Instead, Daraz is recruiting taxi drivers and college students to become brand ambassadors, a sales force paid on commission.

“By tapping into a global shopping phenomenon we will create a more powerful event than if we made up a new concept from scratch,” said Mr Mikkelsen.

By tapping into a global shopping phenomenon we will create a more powerful event than if we made up a new concept from scratch

The Zalora website at the e-commerce company’s office in Bangkok. Rocket Internet GmbH, a German start-up incubator that has made a fortune copying successful US websites, is doing some original spade work for e-commerce in Southeast Asia.

Shayaan Tahir, chief executive of Homeshopping. pk, working on his laptop at his call centre in Karachi. Mr Tahir had an order for a new iPod on Amazon. com rejected because the online giant would not deliver electronics to Pakistan. He decided to take...