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AyRojgar

E-commerce fulfilment and delivery

Storing, packing and delivering online sellers' parcels and collecting the cash. Couriers charge Tk 55-190 a parcel, and a marketplace must pay its seller within 10 days of receiving the money.

  • Last reviewed: 21 September 2026
  • Version 1
E-commerce fulfilment and delivery

E-commerce fulfilment and delivery

Starting capital
৳2,00,000 – ৳25,00,000
Editorial estimate
Manpower
3 – 15 people
First sale
10 – 90 days
Official source
Break-even
3 – 48 months
Editorial estimate
Kind of work
Shop · Hard

About the business

Holding an online seller's stock, packing it when an order comes, carrying it to the buyer's address and bringing the cash back is what fulfilment means here. In Bangladesh it takes two shapes. One is running an area hub or pick-up point for a large courier, delivering parcels with your own riders. The other is holding small Facebook sellers' goods in your own room, packing each order and handing it to a courier. The money is counted per parcel. Pathao Courier's published rates on 21 September 2026: same city up to 500g Tk 60, 1kg Tk 70, 2kg Tk 90; Dhaka suburbs Tk 80, Tk 100, Tk 130; Dhaka to another district Tk 110, Tk 130, Tk 170; district to district Tk 120, Tk 145, Tk 180. Steadfast runs Tk 55 inside Dhaka city, Tk 115 Dhaka to another district and Tk 135 city to city outside Dhaka. RedX is Tk 60 for 1kg inside Dhaka and Tk 130 to main cities outside. Cash-on-delivery is charged on top: Pathao 0.5 percent inside Dhaka and 1 percent outside, Steadfast 1 percent everywhere, RedX 0 percent inside Dhaka and 1 percent outside. The real risk is not the rate but when the money comes back. The Digital Commerce Operation Guidelines 2021 require a marketplace to pay its listed seller the full price, less commission and delivery charge, within a maximum of 10 days of receiving it, and to deliver within 5 days in the same city and 10 days to another. Through those days the riders' wages, the fuel and the packaging come out of your own pocket. And on a parcel that comes back, the cost goes out and no income comes in.

Unit economics

ItemRangeEvidenceSuggest a correction
Monthly working capital৳2,00,000 – ৳8,00,000Editorial estimate
Selling price৳55 – ৳190 / unitMarket quote
Variable cost৳46 – ৳70 / unitEditorial estimate
Gross margin23% – 46%Editorial estimate
Time to first revenue10 – 90 daysOfficial source
Break-even time3 – 48 monthsEditorial estimate
Cash cycle1 – 10 daysOfficial source
Waste / loss5% – 20%Editorial estimate
Daily capacity75 – 350Editorial estimate

What you need to start

  • A motorcycle or bicycle per rider, a digital scale, a barcode or label printer, poly bags, bubble wrap and tape, and an internet-connected smartphone in every rider's hand. Prices could not be verified here.Equipment
  • Liability for other people's stock. Goods in the godown are not yours, but if they are lost or broken you pay for them. This work cannot be started without a written record of which seller has how much stock with you.Starting stock
  • UBID/DBID registration, compulsory for digital commerce under the Digital Commerce Operation Guidelines 2021, processed within 60 working days, and requiring the trade licence, TIN and VAT registration alongside. The fee could not be verified here.Licence
  • Trade licence from the city corporation, municipality or union parishad: application form Tk 50, nomination form Tk 10, licence fee Tk 200-26,000 by business type, or Tk 230-1,500 in a union parishad. Valid one financial year, renewed annually. Issued in 3 working days, 7 if the health department must verify.Licence
  • Reconciling collected cash parcel by parcel. How much was collected today, how much banked, how much is still with which rider: unless that is squared daily, a shortfall is invisible until month end.Skill
  • A written merchant or hub contract with Pathao, Steadfast, RedX or Paperfly, spelling out the per-parcel rate, the COD charge, who pays for returns, and the payment cycle.Supplier
  • A hub or godown with a solid floor where parcels stay dry and can be locked, on a road a van or pickup can reach. A hub inside a narrow lane is one the main courier's vehicle will not come to.Workspace

How the work is done

  1. 1Decide which one you are doing: running an area hub for a large courier, or holding sellers' stock and packing it. The first carries rider and cash-float risk, the second carries warehouse and pilferage risk.
  2. 2Take the trade licence from the city corporation, municipality or union parishad: form Tk 50, licence fee Tk 200-26,000 by business type, or Tk 230-1,500 in a union parishad. Issued in 3 working days, or 7 if health verification is needed.
  3. 3Take the TIN and VAT registration, then apply for UBID/DBID. The Digital Commerce Operation Guidelines make it compulsory and allow up to 60 working days to process, so apply before you start, not after.
  4. 4Sign a merchant or hub contract with Pathao, Steadfast or RedX. Get three things in writing: the per-parcel rate, the COD charge percentage, and how many days until you are paid.
  5. 5Settle the return rule in writing first: who pays. Pathao charges 50 percent of the delivery charge on returns outside Dhaka and nothing inside Dhaka metro. Without that line in the contract money gets deducted every month.
  6. 6Pick an area and hire riders who already know its lanes and houses. A rider in familiar ground delivers one and a half to two times what he manages in a new area, and that alone is what brings the wage per parcel down.
  7. 7Buy a digital scale, a barcode printer and strong poly and bubble wrap. Get the weight wrong and the courier bills the next slab up, and that difference adds up by month end.
  8. 8Keep a record of every parcel: whose goods, what value, the day it went, the day the money came. A paper ledger will do, but it has to reconcile parcel by parcel.
  9. 9Never mix the COD cash with your own business money. It is someone else's money that must be handed over within 10 days. Mix it for one month and the next month's accounts collapse.
  10. 10Keep to the delivery deadlines: 5 days within the same city, 10 days to another, and once full payment is taken the goods must be handed to the delivery agent within 48 hours.
  11. 11Keep all transaction records for six years, which the guidelines make compulsory, and on a complaint contact the buyer and settle it within 72 hours.
  12. 12Line up extra riders and packaging before the month leading to Eid, and cut costs in the low monsoon months. The income in this trade is not level across the year.

Seasons

  1. JanNormal
  2. FebHigh
  3. MarHigh
  4. AprNormal
  5. MayHigh
  6. JunNormal
  7. JulLow
  8. AugLow
  9. SepNormal
  10. OctNormal
  11. NovNormal
  12. DecHigh
HighNormalLow

Where it works well

  • Strong fitChattogram · The second city, with same-city service from both Steadfast and Pathao (same-day inside Chattogram Tk 105), and where most sellers of imported goods sit.
  • Strong fitDhaka · The country's biggest online selling centre, and also where the parcel rate is lowest at Tk 55-90, so nothing survives here without volume.
  • Strong fitGazipur · Pathao prices it as a suburb at Tk 80-130, online buying among garment workers is growing, and vehicles run daily from the Dhaka hubs.
  • Strong fitNarayanganj · Priced as a suburb, stock for small sellers comes out of its wholesale cloth markets, and vehicles run to Dhaka several times a day.
  • PossibleBogura · The distribution centre for the north: parcels for Rangpur, Dinajpur and Naogaon are split here.
  • PossibleCumilla · On the Dhaka-Chattogram highway, so vehicles from both directions stop, which makes district-to-district parcels cheap to handle here.
  • PossibleJashore · Close to the Benapole land port, so there are more small sellers of imported goods, and parcels for the Khulna-Jashore belt spread from here.
  • PossibleKhulna · The distribution centre for the south-west, and since the Padma bridge the run from Dhaka is short enough for the city-to-city rate of Tk 135 to work.
  • PossibleRangpur · A large town but with the upazilas spread out, so a rider spends more time on the far parcels and the wage per parcel goes up.
  • PossibleSylhet · Heavy online buying by migrant workers' families and higher order values, so the percentage COD charge pays better, though the distance from Dhaka is long.

Risks and cautions

  • HighWorking capital: The cash-on-delivery money is in your hands but is not yours. A hundred parcels a day at Tk 1,200 each leaves Tk 120,000 in hand every night, and it must go to the seller within 10 days. Use it for riders' wages or fuel and the shortfall shows the following week, by which time there is no time left to make it up.
  • HighLate payment: If the courier pays you late you cannot pay the seller on time, yet the guidelines' 10-day limit sits on your neck. In between, riders' wages, fuel and packaging go out every day. This is where small operators die: not on the rate, on the wait.
  • HighOther: Returns. A fake order, a buyer who will not answer the phone, a change of mind at the door: all of them send the parcel back. The cost of going has been spent, the cost of coming back is charged too (Pathao takes 50 percent of the delivery charge on returns outside Dhaka), and the income is nil. The rate is highest on exactly the out-of-Dhaka parcels the margin was counted on.
  • HighDependency: Standing on one courier or two or three big sellers. If the courier changes its rate or gives the area to another hub, the income ends on one notice. The same with a seller whose stock fills half your godown: when he leaves, the rent and the wages do not.
  • MediumCompliance: The deadlines in the Digital Commerce Operation Guidelines 2021 have to be met in practice, not on paper: 5 days in the same city, 10 to another, goods to the agent within 48 hours of full payment, a complaint settled within 72 hours, and no more than 10 percent taken in advance on goods not in stock. Operating without UBID makes larger buyers and marketplaces stop giving you work.

Sources

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