Excalibruh
Oh boy, Evaly. How do I start with this? Maybe by just stating the obvious? Don’t buy from places that offers stuff too good. Though that might sound like a cautionary tale, Evaly has proven a few things though. That people actually do get the stuff they buy, they just take few weeks of time to get it.
Playing The Bigger Game
Evaly has been surging up on people’s radar since 2020. If you don’t know, Evaly is an online shopping e-commerce site. Where, mostly, you find ridiculous offers like buying bikes selling at half the price. Same for fridges, air-conditioners, house-appliances, cosmetics, dresses, computer hardware, peripherals etc. Like their business was booming, huge especially around the 1st quarter of this year.
While, you won’t always get these discounts all the time. Each every Friday, they hold large Cyclone or Earthquake sales. Offering from 10-60% discounts. Understandably, every shopping venue or site does this. But not like Evaly. Their discounts are ridiculously low, especially for attractive and popular items. Of course, your order isn’t entirely complete until you paid up for the item.
Here’s the gist of it tho, you buy an item ridiculously cheap, you’re going to have wait till the seller from the site delivers the item which usually takes from 2-3 months, heck even longer if you’re unlucky. Sometimes knocking the seller helped though. The other dilemma is whether the seller will actually bring the item over or not. Trust factors in.
It has been estimated as of now, that the site is worth Tk65 crore. While holding itself liable for Tk403.80 crore. It gets better. They owe Tk190 crore to the merchants they’ve purchased the items from.
Stories To Tell
Although I’ve never made successful purchases from Evaly due to the skepticism surrounding it, I know quite a lot of people who did. One guy in particular, runs a business of working logistics for bringing items for people. He bought a gaming chair, a UPS, gaming mouse, mechanical keyboard, smartwatch, and some other stuff for dirt cheap. Waited like weeks, yet received them.
Another few, managed to get crazy stuff like new refrigerator, washing machine, a new bike. They got crazier as they went on. Same thing, just wait a few months. Another guy, I managed to buy his SHP9500 headphone for dirt cheap, but he managed to get it from Evaly for half the market price before selling it off.
Some advises go like buying from reputed sellers to making sure you keep pestering the seller from chat, and on, and on. The no of people purchasing things at an increasing rate. They were obviously going to ramp up the offers.
How Lucrative Is This
Their only way forward with their supposed business model is by increasing liabilities. Basically increasing the no of items they can get from merchants, work with the rest later like selling the item, paying off the merchants, etc. Of which it seems the last part isn’t going well for them.
Though this might sound like a big gamble on their business, the no of customers they’ve received surpassed 44 lakhs, that’s 4.4 million. This is a similar tactic that Netflix has pulled off, but they are a digital streaming service, providing hundreds of contents on a near daily-basis. Plus they’ve mostly paid their debts to this point. While Evaly is accumulating.
Because of this odd business practice, Bangladesh Bank has hired a third-party company to hold the payment until the merchant or site themselves have delivered the item. Once that is done, they will receive their payment from the customer. After you’re done paying the money, the company will be putting it in their reserve until that item you ordered has been received. This applies to all e-commerce sites in BD.
While this sounds reassuring, there’s always a case of double-edged swords to be considered. The banks don’t always pan things out. I mean, we live in a country, where we deal with bank problems ad nauseam. So go figure.
What’s to say you want to make a purchase, taking a swing in things? Should you throw caution in the wind? Buying from sellers you know would be a good deal to work with. Some of them have been made known in Facebook pages. Just don’t go buying a car, actually thinking you’ll get it in the next few months. That’s not a sizeable investment you’d really want to make.
