Monday night's six-hour Facebook outage hit thousands of F-commerce entrepreneurs in the country as they neither could promote their products nor make deals during that period.

Unaware of Facebook and its other services -- WhatsApp and Instagram -- going down around 9:40pm on Monday, many F-commerce based businesses became worried as they could not refresh their feeds, respond to customer queries, and finalise deals.

Many missed business opportunities ahead of the Durga Puja, the biggest religious festival of the Hindu community beginning next week.

The outage cost the global economy about $160 million per hour, according to NetBlocks, a website that tracks internet outages and their impact on the global economy. Facebook's stocks dropped by about 5.5 percent, and CEO Mark Zuckerberg lost nearly $7 billion.

The local small businesses and advertisers that rely heavily on the social networking platform also suffered.

F-commerce entrepreneurs in Bangladesh lost 25 percent orders in 24 hours ending at 9:40pm yesterday, claimed Jahangir Alam Shovon, general manager of e-Commerce Association of Bangladesh (e-Cab).

He said customers in Bangladesh place about 2 lakh orders online every day and the average basket size is Tk 2,000. A large number of the orders is placed through Facebook and products are also sold on the platform.

The exact number of the country's F-commerce (Facebook commerce) entrepreneurs is not available, but sources in the digital commerce sector say the number is about 5 lakh.

F-commerce has been thriving in the country for the last few years, thanks to a huge Facebook user base of nearly 4 crore.

With the option available for boosting sales by paying Facebook to show products tailored to each prospective customer's interests, many youths, especially women entrepreneurs, started selling goods using the platform.

F-commerce grew rapidly after the start of the Covid-19 pandemic last year as many who lost jobs ventured into businesses to sell products ranging from fresh and organic vegetables, homemade food to clothing and lifestyle items.

The social media platform has become a boon for thousands of prospective small and micro entrepreneurs as it provides them with the scope to do business without having an actual store that requires a good amount of capital.

Many entrepreneurs were worried after being cut off from their customers, said Nasima Akter Nisha, president of Women and e-Commerce Forum (WE), a Facebook page where women with different skills can showcase their products or services for sale.

"Their fear is justified as they solely depend on Facebook for their business. Facebook going down for a day means losing business for that day."

She, however, said the impact of the outage on business was minimal as Facebook restored services within several hours.

"Local F-commerce entrepreneurs are relieved to see that the service is back. We don't want to see this happen again. They should think about an alternative. If Facebook is down, they have no other place to go as they don't have any website or brick-and-mortar shops," said Nasima.

Nusrat Jahan, who runs Facebook page "Pasar Crafts", said she uploaded ads on popular women's wears, and "Katan" saris on Monday afternoon to attract customers ahead of Durga Puja.

The outage took away nearly one-day of her business opportunity.

"Customers usually enquire within two hours after uploading an advertisement when the internet connection is smooth and there is no other disruption. It was different this time," she Nusrat who has been running the page for the last one and half years.

Tania Sultana, owner of Facebook page "Biraz Bou" which sells traditional Jamdani saris, first thought it was a local glitch.

"But when I learnt that it was Facebook's problem, I was afraid because everything -- from promotion of products to taking orders -- of my business is done using Facebook," she said.

AKM Fahim Mashroor, CEO of e-commerce platform AjkerDeal, said losses of businesses were not significant as it was night in Bangladesh when the outage happened.

"But if such a problem continues for a longer period or for a few days in future, then the e-commerce would also face huge damages as 50 percent of e-commerce business in Bangladesh depends on Facebook," he said.

"This is a warning to e-commerce businesses who rely heavily on Facebook," said Farhana A Rahman, senior vice president of Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services.

She said e-commerce platforms should not rely only on Facebook, they should also focus on attracting customers using their own websites.