What is f-commerce? Selling on Facebook in Bangladesh, explained (2026)

Published 7 October 2026 · 3 min read

F-commerce, short for Facebook commerce, is buying and selling through Facebook: a shop posts its products on a Facebook Page, customers ask about them in the comments and in Messenger, and the order is agreed in the conversation. In Bangladesh a great many small shops trade this way, often with no website at all. Here is how it works, how big it is according to the estimates that have been published, how it differs from e-commerce, and where it gets hard.

1. What counts as f-commerce

Any sale that starts on Facebook: a product post on a Page, a live video, a post in a buy-and-sell group, or an ad that opens a chat in Messenger. Instagram, which Meta also owns, works the same way, and many shops sell on both. What makes it f-commerce rather than e-commerce is that the sale is agreed in a conversation instead of at a checkout.

2. How a sale works

A customer sees a post and asks the price, in a comment or a message. The shop answers with the price, the sizes or colours left and the delivery charge for the customer’s area. If the customer agrees, the shop takes their name, phone number and address, confirms the order, and books a courier, who usually collects the money in cash at the door. Some shops ask for the delivery charge, or the whole price, in advance by bKash or Nagad.

Every one of those steps is typed by somebody, which is why a busy Page sells as fast as it answers.

3. How big it is

Nobody counts f-commerce officially, so every figure is an estimate. A column in the Dhaka Tribune in January 2023 put it at over 300,000 f-commerce pages, the same figure Rest of World gave in 2020, and cited Meta for women owning 70% of the Facebook-based businesses opened since the pandemic began. The Financial Express reported in September 2023 that e-CAB, the e-commerce association, estimated about a quarter of e-commerce businesses to be Facebook-based.

The customers are certainly there: DataReportal counted 60.0 million active social media users in Bangladesh in January 2025, as DHL quotes it.

4. F-commerce and e-commerce: the difference

E-commerce usually means a website or a marketplace where the customer picks a product, puts it in a cart and pays without talking to anyone. F-commerce runs the other way: the conversation is the checkout. It costs almost nothing to start and the customers are already on Facebook, but every order needs somebody to answer, and nothing is written down unless you write it down.

Many shops end up doing both: the Page and Messenger for the conversation, and a website where every product, price and size can be seen at once and shared as a link.

5. Where it gets hard

Answering. Customers ask the same questions all day, and one who waits too long buys somewhere else. Our guide to answering every Facebook Page message covers how shops keep up.

Keeping track. Orders live in chat threads, so it is easy to miss one, send the wrong size or lose count of the stock.

Refused parcels. With cash on delivery a customer can refuse at the door, and the trip is paid for anyway. Our guide to reducing cash on delivery returns covers what helps.

Depending on one platform. A Page’s reach is decided by Facebook, and a Page that loses access stops selling until it is back. Keep your list of customers and your products somewhere you control as well.

6. The rules

Selling on Facebook is selling online, and the same rules apply. When the government’s Digital Business Identity (DBID) registration opened in 2022, Prothom Alo reported that it covers businesses run on Facebook too. Our guide to starting an online business in Bangladesh covers the DBID, the trade licence and the delivery time rule.

Sells Pilot is f-commerce software for Bangladesh. Its assistant answers your Messenger and Instagram messages from your catalogue, takes the order with the delivery charge for the customer’s district, and books Steadfast, Pathao or RedX, and every product can also have its own page on your free shop website.