Facebook has become Afghanistan's premier internet bazaar, but now it’s become a headache for sellers
, a 26-year-old entrepreneur in Kabul, Afghanistan’s mountain-fringed capital, recently opened his first shop. On the top floor of Dawoodzai mall, one of Kabul’s fanciest shopping destinations, he stands behind a counter stacked with his best-selling products: bottles of hair-loss lotion from Russia; posture-correcting devices from China; children’s toys from the United Arab Emirates. Missing, however, are customers. The real storefront for Mr Salim’s enterprise is Facebook.
Few Afghans surf the internet. Although mobile phones have spread rapidly—and enterprising firms have put up masts even in places beset by fighting between government forces and the Taliban—only one in ten Afghans uses them to access the web. At least in big cities, though, that is changing fast. Younger, more affluent Kabulis are addicted to their phones.
The biggest problem of late has been Facebook itself. It is impossible to run an online store any other way, says Mr Ullah; other, unsubsidised mobile data is too pricey. But relying on Facebook means that to reach his potential customers he has to buy advertisements from it. Recently, as the social network has tried to reduce the clutter on its users’ feeds, the price of advertising has gone up. Mr Ullah complains that it currently costs him $10 to reach 1,000 customers.
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