There is one thing we are certain of when it comes to shopping in the UAE and the wider region: we love to shop and we love to be fashionable.
This, correlated with the fact that we have some of the highest internet and smartphone penetration rates in the world and we are quite tech-savvy makes the region a huge potential market for e-commerce. In fact, from my perspective, the future of shopping is online.
Despite the “touch-and-feel” experience customers can only have in brick-and-mortar shops, online offers far more many advantages for a brand to be competitive and sell. This is particularly relevant for small brands, and emerging fashion businesses. Even with established brands that have an offline presence, more than 50 per cent of the sales volume comes from online.
No surprise here, considering the very large audiences, the convenience of 24/7 availability, or the market intelligence they get from being online.
That is probably the reason e-commerce was one of the main topics at the recent Fashion Forward Dubai — a premier platform for the regional fashion industry. The region holds great creative potential, with hundreds if not thousands of talented designers trying to sell their creations.
But in such a competitive market, it is hard to focus on design when you also have to handle marketing and logistics. So what are the advantages e-commerce has over offline shopping?
While established brands have totally embraced it, it’s only recently that young fashion entrepreneurs and designers have realised the potential that e-commerce platforms have in growing their business. One of the main reasons we are becoming increasingly attractive for them is that we offer a huge selling platform and access to wide, targeted audiences that otherwise they couldn’t reach.
Online is also the most economical way to do this and it is risk-free. Imagine a young designer has instant access to a community of over 4 million customers. There is no way that this could be achieved with just an offline presence.
MarkaVIP spends millions of dollars on marketing, and a big part of this budget goes into promoting the products we sell every day, thus promoting the brands and the designers. Plus, we provide them with valuable market research, so they understand what customers want — which is essential for the success of their business.
Although some of the small businesses that understand the value of online presence try to establish their own e-commerce website, we don’t think this is the best solution for them. The business behind an e-commerce site is extremely complex, and fashion designers or emerging businesses don’t have resources — knowledge, time and people — to properly focus on that. We can say, from our own experience and challenges we have had to overcome, that infrastructure is key.
We have invested millions of dollars in building a solid infrastructure — having our own drivers, a VIP service, and local call centres where people speak the languages and have a cultural understanding of the region, and this is something young entrepreneurs can’t always afford. Furthermore, we are technologists with extensive experience in building secure, reliable and convenient online shopping platforms, offering a service that will help young designers and brands sell while focusing on what they know best — fashion.
This region holds great potential for fashion design — but that will also mean only the most competitive ones will succeed. With consumers’ appetites for online shopping growing at a rapid pace, emerging designers have no other choice than to embrace e-commerce and make the most out of it.
CREDIT: The writer is the founder and CEO of MarkaVIP.
