For Shayaan Tahir, it all began seven years ago when an order he placed on Amazon for a new iPod was rejected because the online giant would not deliver electronics to Pakistan.

Frustrated, he founded one of Pakistan's first e-commerce ventures, a sector that today is booming.

Tahir was working at a call center in Karachi at the time and had saved hard to buy himself an iPod. He enlisted a cousin in the United States to send him three of Apple's music players. Tahir kept one and sold the other two via classified ads.