With online shopping booming all over the world, the consumers in the Middle East countries have been slow to use online stores to make their purchase.
Why is it so?
Probably, because of the following reasons:
Whatever may be the reason, the fact is that there’s a great opportunity for online marketplaces to penetrate the eCommerce industry in the Middle East and drive great impact in terms of online business growth.
However, the most surprising fact is that since past few years, there has been a seismic eCommerce shift in the UAE and the country has certainly become the fastest growing eCommerce hub with a huge opportunity to establish and develop your online business. Despite of being the home to world-famous luxurious mega malls, UAE is expected to witness massive eCommerce growth in the next five years and reign over the Middle East markets.
Muhammed Mekki, the founding partner of Dubai-based Google For Entrepreneurs tech hub network AstroLabs says: “e-commerce growth was bound to happen since the proportion of online vs total retail sales is incredibly low in this part of the world, while internet accessibility continues to increase throughout the region.”
He further adds, “Since e-commerce is highly capital intensive and local VCs have not been actively investing in the space, near-term growth is likely to come from offline players developing online storefronts. A slowdown in the bricks and mortar retail sector may finally encourage these traditional players to build online capacity in search of new growth channels”
Most businesses have taken advantage of expanding their online ventures, transiting from retail to building a strong online presence. Many luxury brands like Dolce & Gabbana, Burberry, and jewelry retailer Blue Nile have already launched Arabic-language sites aimed at regular online shoppers in the UAE. Nonetheless, the traditional and other small business marketplaces are still to make the mark in the region.
The Scope of building an online shopping mall in Middle East & UAE
In the Middle East, online shopping has grown meticulously by 1500% over the last decade and continues to grow rapidly. According to a report issued by the Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry, deep penetration of smart phones and tablets, and the use of credit and debit cards among the young dynamic population has laid the foundation of rapid expansion of digital markets and soared the levels of online spending potential. Furthermore, a research by Frost & Sullivan states that the country’s e-commerce market is worth nearly $2.5 billion a year and is expected to grow to $10 billion by 2018.
Hence, it becomes crucial for the SMEs to grab the unique opportunity and stay competitive setting up their eCommerce platforms to capitalize on the ongoing trends.
Secondly, the consumer experiences are majorly focused on the connected devices. Successful businesses will be able to offer an end-to-end shopping experiences which are consistent across all the channels. There’s only one big player of the e-commerce industry in Middle East and that’s the souq.com. Apart from this one, there are some others but there is no other marketplace such big as souq.com.
Major Factors to Create an Online Shopping Mall
Software:
When it comes to choosing a scalable marketplace solution, there are some important factors to keep in mind. You first need to decide on which eCommerce platform you’ll lay your online empire. There are numerous opensource platforms available like Magento, Opencart, Prestashop, WooCommerce, Cs-Cart, etc.
Further, you can choose a cloud hosting service such as AWS (Amazon Web Services), Google Cloud, etc. and finally the hosting platforms like Godaddy and others in the market. Besides, you have ready-to-use marketplace solution Rocket Bazaar, with multiple cart system.
Rocket Bazaar – One-stop Marketplace solution to build a thriving online shopping mall
Rocket Bazaar is a leading marketplace solution provider offering highly functional Magento 2 multi vendor marketplace solution that allows multiple vendors to sell on a single platform, meeting business needs, while creating seamless shopping experiences for your customers on all the channels. Here are some of the key features you’ll find showcased in Rocket Bazaar:
Functionality
When it comes to overall performance and flexibility of your marketplace, the most vital functions for the success of an online business are website speed, ease of navigation and the website’s proper optimization. Apart from these, mobile solutions, on-site store locators, local SEO factors and multiple language options are some other functions that Rocket Bazaar perfectly takes care of.
When it comes to language, localization plays an important role in building trust with the people of the region. Moreover, Google results appear according to the location of the search. We, at Rocket Bazaar ensure that our solution supports LTR as well as RTL, while attracting customers either on native or Arabic searches.
Products and Catalog Management
Rocket Bazaar offers a highly scalable, comprehensive and secure catalog structure which runs flawlessly even in the complex architecture. The data and functions are structured in an ultra-modern technology which measures high-quality results in a cost-effective way.
Payment Methods
The module supports all the major payment gateway APIs available for you to run your business hassle free with modern security features, enabling customers to confidently shop while paying through an online process.
Customizable Options
The solution is fully customizable, providing the ability to modify the features so that customers find the store easy and attractive to use.
Mobile Commerce
Rocket Bazaar consists of mobile apps designed for all the entities involved in the marketplace. This makes your customers’ mobile journey fruitful with rich and modern UI functions.
Customer Experience
The solution focuses on creating and delivering an enjoyable shopping experience to your customers like any online merchant.
Admin Features of the Software
Now, let’s check out how do admin and vendors benefit from Rocket Bazaar’s multi seller marketplace solution:
For Admin
The Vendors get following benefits;
Apart from these the multi seller ecommerce platform of Rocket Bazaar also offers added advantages by providing,
Achieving all these extensive features and advantages can be a very tedious job if you start doing it right from scratch.
Coming back to the Middle East, the highest ranked countries attracting strong interests from regional and international retailers are UAE, Oman, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Tunisia, Bahrain, and Egypt. Where, Dubai in-spite of being the home to world’s most luxurious and biggest malls, but it also has the highest number of online shoppers in the UAE.
The bottom-line is that the Middle East is becoming more and more a reap target for eCommerce, investors, and entrepreneurs. The eCommerce world in the Middle East is enormous, largely untapped market which will surely give birth to more exceptional businesses, and revolutionary technology services in the years to come!
It’s now the time to invest in the eCommerce industry in the Middle East. Whether you’re a startup or an established enterprise, you should focus on staying competitive, attracting more new customers, offering best customer service and much more. For accomplishing this, all you need to do is Contact us and discuss your business needs. We’ll be glad to hear from you!
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