Bonik Somiti: A Social-market Tool for Safe, Accountable, and Harmonious Informal E-Market Ecosystem in Bangladesh

TL;DR

This paper introduces Bonik Somiti, a socio-technical system designed to improve safety, accountability, and dispute resolution in Bangladesh's informal e-market ecosystem, addressing scattered reporting and trust issues.

Contribution

It presents the design and evaluation of a community-centered platform that enhances structured reporting and mediation for informal e-markets in the Global South.

Findings

Participants faced challenges in fraud management and dispute resolution.

Structured reporting improves transparency and trust.

Community-based mediation supports safer informal markets.

Abstract

People in informal e-markets often try to deal with fraud and financial harm by sharing posts, screenshots, and warnings in social media groups. However, buyers and sellers frequently face further problems because these reports are scattered, hard to verify, and rarely lead to resolution. We studied these issues through a survey with 124 participants and interviews with 36 buyers, sellers, and related stakeholders from Bangladesh and designed Bonik Somiti, a socio-technical system that supports structured reporting, admin-led mediation, and accountability in informal e-markets. Our evaluation with 32 participants revealed several challenges in managing fraud, resolving disputes, and building trust within existing informal practices and the assumptions behind them. Based on these findings, we further discuss how community-centered technologies can be designed to support safer and more accountable informal e-markets in the Global South.