Although new players are few and far between, the UAE online marketplace continues to see growth thanks to the entry of brick-and-mortar retailers, payment providers and ancillary service providers. In the last year alone many interesting developments have taken place.
Wysada, a member-based luxury home interior and décor brand thatlaunched early this year, reports that sales have been doubling each month in the last six months. “Our first quarter sales conversion rate is 3 per cent, double the industry average and more than 30 per cent of our members make repeat purchases,” says Mohammad Musleh, Founder and CEO, Wysada.com.
Maturing market
BasharaCare.com, a website offering professional skincare products and treatments, which launched in February this year reports similar trends. “We are growing around 40 per cent month-on-month, with 30 per cent repeat customers. We are looking at adding new brands every month — we launched with 25 and we now have 45, aiming to reach 100 by the end of the year,” says Jad Haidamous, Founder and CEO, BasharaCare.com.
Omar Kassim, a veteran in online years, having started Jadopado.com in 2010, says the market is fast maturing. “With the market maturing, there are start-ups in peripherals. Payment majors are setting up local offices and merchants are exploring new categories. It is a clear sign that e-commerce is taking off,” says Kassim.
Several start-ups have also emerged to find ways to better locate the customer. Enwan, meaning address in Arabic was introduced at the recently concluded Arabnet Digital Summit in the UAE. With user agreement the programme enables online merchants to access a central database of authenticated locations.
Such is the potential of online shopping that malls and retailers cannot afford to ignore it. In June this year, French hypermarket chain Géant launched the UAE’s first online hypermarket (geantonline.ae), where consumers can shop for grocery items and electronics. The UAE-based Landmark group has also introduced LandmarkShops.com, for three of its retail brands, Emax, Babyshop and Splash and is planning to bring in other labels from the group.
Tapping technology
Shopping malls are also tapping the online world to reach out to consumers, with the help of technology. “When consumers walk into malls we have devices that are wireless enabled, even if we are not connected to the network. It can identify if it is a return user and track him all the way through that venue. We can build full maps of people through that venue. This information is crucial to retailers and it is already implanted in the UAE, which was one of the first countries to deploy this,” says Osama Rasoul, sales manager, Cisco Network Architectures.
Geo-localisation will soon mean that the shopper will get personalised deals and use the store to browse while shopping online. “At the moment, the total share of e-commerce is still less than one per cent. Today in the US, 8 per cent of retail happens online. In the UK, it is 20 per cent. In 10 years, the UAE will go from less than one per cent to 7-10 per cent online,” he says. n
