bdnews24.com :
The first online free classified advertisement website in Bangladesh, Cellbazaar.com, has officially re-identified itself as Ekhanei.com.
Arild Klokkerhaug, the director of Ekhanei.com, made the announcement at a media call in Dhaka on Tuesday.
“We just crossed the impressive number of one million Likes on our Facebook page,” he said.
Asked about the rebranding, he told bdnews24.com, “Cellbazaar is a well known brand, but the large majority of users were from Dhaka and surrounding areas.
“Internet is growing fast and spreading deep into the districts and smaller towns. We therefore felt that Ekhanei was a much better name, symbolising that wherever you are in Bangladesh, we are right here, Ekhanei.”
Cellbazaar.com started eight years ago in 2006 as a mobile-based classifieds service for Grameenphone users before becoming a full-fledged website.
The new kite logo is one of the several improvements to the outlook of the website.
Both the Cellbazaar.com and Ekhanei.com domains lead to a sleek new homepage that first of all asks users to select their home location.
“This is done because buying and selling goods between consumers is very dependent on nearness,” the company said in a media statement.
At the bottom of the new homepage are seven logos representing the seven most popular categories of the site-properties, vehicles, home, personal items, leisure, sports and hobby, electronics and gadgets and jobs and services.
The site is now available in both Bangla and English, with a convenient button at the upper-right corner to switch between the two.
The company said older ads and user profiles would remain as they were on Cellbazaar.com.
A new software has been put in place to check that frauds and trade of stolen goods do not happen on the site.
A team of trained moderators will also check every submitted ad very carefully against many criteria and reject every ad that seems suspicious.
Salehuzzaman, of Forethought PR that does public relations for Ekhanei.com, said in order to safeguard the users from such frauds, the site would take down such ads and even contact the law enforcement if necessary.
The statement said the company had noticed changes in advertising trends on the website.
