eCommerce sales facts & tips on selling in United Arab Emirates

With the advent of the internet E-commerce industry, sales have boomed in every corner of the world. What could be more fascinating than buying clothes, electronic gadgets, accessories, and any other essentials over the click of a button? The statistics say, that 80% of the internet users are Online buyers in UAE, and individuals under the age of 31 attribute to 73% of all online transactions.

The top E-commerce websites in the United Arab Emirates are as follows:

• Amazon.ae
• Dubizzle.com
• Aliexpress.com
• Awok.com
• Groupon.ae
• Cobone.com
• Supermart.ae
• Jadopado.com
• Namshi.com

Every E-commerce website has its benefits and attracts a large number of customers and the reason behind such traffic is the array of products the websites offer to its customers.

To establish your brand presence in the UAE e-commerce market, one must be aware of the top product/product categories include flight tickets, clothes, mobile phones, utilities, hotel reservations, event tickets, computer software, cell phones, and watches. As the market for the above-mentioned products is on high demand all the time, an entrepreneur or organization can think about those products that would give an edge over others.

One of the important aspects of having an E-commerce website is the payment method or payment gateway. Without giving many hassles to the users if the payment method is set, the users will leave the site only after buying the cart items.

If you don’t want to turn off your customer’s payment gateway is imperative. When the payment method is not concurrent, there are fair chances of customers quitting the purchase through your portal. You must ensure that a proper payment gateway or payment method is in place and the one that has conversion rate based on ex-rates are optimum.

The best payment gateway in the UAE are as follows:

• Telr
• Payfort
• Checkout
• 2checkout
• Cashu
• CC avenue
• PayTabs

The penetration of users into the Internet world is 91.9% making it convenient to market your products online as the customers can avail of the facility without stepping out for the purchase of such commodities.

You have set up a portal, have required commodities to sell, and bring in customers but if you are keen on creating huge traffic to your website, you must think of local marketing and SEO to optimize the search engines. By indexing your content, your website will appear when a search for a product is made and will enhance the organic traffic at an international level. You may also opt for Facebook ads and Google ads to improve the reach.

Mobile commerce is shortly known as M-commerce where people resort to using mobile or tablet to purchase items rather than using a desktop for using online portals. So every business should standardize their websites for the customers to use and buy products of their liking with the help of their hand-held device. The E-commerce industry is expanding its presence all over the country, for the sheer convenience of smartphone usage and easy access to the internet.

The proportion of mobile users is on the rise for online purchases than desktop and laptop users. According to a Google survey, the usage of smartphones among the younger population is more than 90%.

One can avail of the facility to ship goods to UAE through global shipping/ parcel forwarding services. While using this facility the reduced cost incurred on shipping can be passed onto the customers thereby gaining a competitive advantage over others.

As far as setting up an E-commerce site is nevertheless a humongous task but getting a license to sell your commodities is tricky. You need to obtain a license and there are steps to adhere to procure a license to set up an E-commerce store. The license is issued by the Department of Economic Development and has to be renewed every year.

United Arab Emirates – general information

Emirati E-commerce records the highest growth and is the most dynamic market as well as an E-commerce of GCC states. The growth rate of E-commerce has increased exponentially over the years and on average continues to grow over 25%.

The United Arab Emirates is the 7th largest in terms of population size amongst other 14 Middle East countries. For the E-commerce industry to scale up, a larger chunk of the population should be using the internet. UAE being the second highest in terms of internet penetration, Emirati internet users account for 5.8% of total internet users in the Middle East, which turns out to be 4th highest.

The e-economy is encouraged by the UAE government making it a regional hub for the setup and growth of online businesses.

The commodities that were making a huge presence online were electronics retail but gradually clothing and others are showing an upward trend, reporting sales amounting millions of US$.

The E-Commerce market revenue is expected to show an annual growth of 16.3% resulting in a projected volume of more than US$10,000m by 2024. The usage, the reach and the stupendous growth of E-Commerce sites provide a positive outlook.

Challenges for the eCommerce setup

The market for the products through E-commerce websites is always on the increasing trend but for a new business to set up, there are stumbling blocks that need to be identified and cleared. A clear understanding of the functioning of the market, well worked out sales strategy will help.

To enable retailers to boost their international sales, localization, and translation of E-commerce business is done to get an edge over local competitors. But localization many not have happened as they have not been optimized, although translation has happened.

Another major challenge is Online payment, despite the best of efforts taken to ensure fraudulent activities are curtailed, users are not considering payments gateway as a trustworthy method.

Thanks to the advancement in technology, machine learning, and AI are handy for international online retailers to set up an E-commerce business.

If the keywords are optimized, payment gateway is utilized effectively, localization of the business, conversion rates are taken care of, you are all set to kick-start your E-commerce venture in UAE.