Sri Lanka's e-commerce market is valued at over USD 2.5 billion and growing at over 20% year-on-year. The classifieds and resale segment remains almost entirely unstructured and unprotected.

MO Marketplace, founded by Anika Wijesuriya and live since June 2024, is the first locally built platform addressing that gap directly, combining escrow-protected payments, managed island-wide delivery, and Sri Lanka's lowest published commission rate within a single mobile application.

In 18 months, the platform recorded 45,000 downloads, 14,000 registered users, and peak monthly active users of 15,000 with ratings of 4.4 and 4.5 stars respectively.

The commission structure is the sharpest competitive differentiator. Dominant platforms charge SMEs between 15% and 30% per transaction. MO caps its rate at a flat 10% with no hidden fees. For small businesses operating on post-crisis margins, that gap is structurally significant.

The trust architecture is equally important. Payments are held in escrow until delivery is confirmed. Managed pickup and drop-off is integrated directly into the platform offering a single transaction flow.

The next phase raises the product bar further. AI tools deploying in mid-2026 will auto-generate listing descriptions and enhance product images automatically. Video-led selling, modelled on the TikTok Shop format that reshaped commerce across Southeast Asia, will allow sellers to convert directly from content, a capability entirely absent from the Sri Lankan market today.

Sri Lankans have always bought and sold this way, in WhatsApp groups, Facebook posts, and word of mouth. MO Marketplace is simply the first platform built to do it properly, giving it the infrastructure it never had.

Anika Wijesuriya in discussion with some of her team members

MO Marketplace Team behind the current success of 14,000 registered users

Image Caption : Founder of MO Marketplace Anika Wijesuriya