Title: prospects of eco-friendliness in promoting Dhaka’s small e-businesses during COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

The research seeks to understand the current landscape of Dhaka city’s small businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic that are both online and offline or follow the brick-and-mortar business model. It also shows a way to convert the risky brick-and-mortar business model during the pandemic situation in Dhaka to an online one which is also able to market itself as holistically eco-friendly as the demand from the mid-range earning Dhaka city dwellers suggests. This category of eco-conscious customers earns from 70 thousand to 1 lakh and 50 thousand Bangladeshi Taka per month. The COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns since March 2020 has caused the Dhaka Metropolitan City’s local brick-and-mortars to either shut down completely or fail to make profit for months. This gave a never-before-seen rise to the e-business sector as more buyers looked up online on webpages of businesses who were able to set up their sales on the internet. That is to say, many local businesses who target the mid-range earning customers still fail to move online as they lack the resources and knowledge for how to do it profitably. Moreover, the ones doing business online often fail to consider and promote the values eco-friendliness that the mid-range earning Dhaka dwellers ask for. This research shows prospects of using eco-friendliness for promoting online small businesses and provides a reason to narrow down the customer base that demand eco-friendly products and are more profitable as their value resonate with the businesses' offers.