Qatar's first e-commerce website goes into action

Qatar's first e-commerce Website has flickered into action introducing online shopping for over 6,000 products including electronic goods, home appliances and computers, manager of the Website told Gulf News.

Abdul Salam Abdul Rahman, who started this Website on Monday, said his company "deals only in leading brands with support from their sole dealers in Qatar." The site is dohamarket.com .

"Initially it was very difficult to convince the authorised dealers of premier brands in Qatar the advantages of joining in our project," said Abdul Rahman, who is planning to leave his current job of a computer consultant with a Doha company to devote all his time to his Website.

"But once they understood the seriousness of our venture, they became its enthusiastic supporters," he added. Items sold through dohamarket.com will be cheaper than in retail stores, Abdul Rahman promised because "we have very little overhead expenses and do not have to spend huge sums on storage of goods."

The brand leaders, he said, have offered the new site their goods at wholesale prices and are sold at the site at a very small profit margin. Ordered products will be delivered at the customers' doorsteps or may be collected at the company's office, Abdul Rahman said, adding that the dealers will handle the after-sales service.

"The major advantage of the site is that buyers can make a detailed comparison of the products by browsing different brands and their prices. Details of different products with their pictures are also available."

The Website, Abdul Rahman said, will be ideal for busy executives and businessmen having no time to go to shops personally. "It will also suit women who can do their shopping in the comfort of their homes."

Payment through credit cards will not, however, be possible, as banks in Qatar do not offer an Internet merchant account, he said. An Internet merchant account is an account with a financial institution that enables e-commerce firms to accept credit cards, or purchase cards for payment over the Internet.

"Because of that we will follow the cash-on-delivery mode of payment" which means payment by the buyer upon taking hold of the items. "We also can't accept payment through credit cards from buyers at the time of delivery as the mobile credit card reading system has not yet been introduced in Qatar."

Despite these disadvantages, Abdul Rahman, who is from India, was confident his project would succeed. He estimated the average running cost of dohamarket.com to be around 25,000 Qatari riyals (Dh25,000) a month. "This will easily be covered by the revenue from advertisements on our site," he said.

Abdul Rahman, who set up this company with three other partners, said an impression had been created that it would need a lot of money to set up and run an e-commerce project. "This is not right. The site has been set up with just 70,000 Qatari riyals (Dh 70,000).

An Arabic interface for the site will be launched by the end of this year, he said. Abdul Rahman said that a dedicated server for the site from a web hosting company in Chicago to ensure speedy performance.

But ultimately the performance of our Website depends on the local Internet provider, Q-Tel, which has come under fire for its slowness and extravagant prices.