Pathao Commerce vs your own store
Pathao delivers the parcel. They also sell a shop and an inbox. StoreOS is the opposite: your store, Pathao and Steadfast as couriers.
Pathao Commerce is a real product. It is not “just courier.”
Their site sells one platform: orders, inventory, chat, payments, delivery. A unified inbox for Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp. A no-code store. Instant checkout from social. Pathao Parcel is the delivery layer.
If your business is the inbox, that is a coherent offer. Stay there.
This post is for the seller who wants the shop to be theirs, and Pathao (or Steadfast) to stay a courier.
Whose store is it?
On Pathao Commerce, the store lives inside Pathao. Shopify shows up as a channel they connect. Chat is a core product: create the order, take payment, send the parcel from the thread.
On StoreOS, the store is yours. Pathao and Steadfast book from the order list. Customers can still WhatsApp you. The site is the catalog and the order record. Chat is beside the shop, not the shop.
Pathao’s terms say your products and customers remain yours, and the platform technology remains Pathao’s. That is a normal SaaS split. The practical question is simpler: when the layout is wrong, can you leave their template without leaving checkout, OTP, and courier booking behind?
When the template is wrong
Pathao Commerce: you stay on their storefront.
StoreOS: pick a theme in the console (Starter and Enigma are live; more are coming), or a developer builds a custom storefront on the same APIs. Catalog, checkout, and COD do not get rebuilt.
That is the uncopyable piece. Courier-owned shops can say all-in-one + COD + delivery. They do not ship “theme or your own frontend, same backend.”
What we will not pretend
We will not invent Pathao Commerce prices or a merchant census. Their homepage publishes its own numbers. Treat those as theirs.
We will not tell you to kill Messenger. Most Bangladesh buyers still message. The site sits next to that.
We will not say Free takes Pathao COD. It does not. Free builds the catalog. Paid plans take orders and book couriers. See pricing.
Who should pick which
Pathao Commerce if you want one inbox, Pathao delivery as the product, and a store that launches inside that world.
StoreOS if you want a shop on your domain (on a paid plan), COD and Pathao or Steadfast in the console, and the option to throw away the theme later without throwing away checkout.
GearHaat (gearhaat.com) and Sporty BD (sportybd.com) already run the second way. Name and URL only. No quotes, no GMV.