The Middle East is a burgeoning region for the ecommerce industry. With the highest penetration of internet users per capita, the rapid rise of m-commerce and eagerness of the population to avail of the conveniences of online shopping, it’s a market waiting to be tapped.
Yet there are reasons why the market is in its current nascent stage:
- The customers’ reluctance to pay before receipt of the product,
- Last mile logistics and delivery challenges,
- Red tape and lack of regulations for ecommerce
But the lure of rapidly-evolving commerce is irresistible and even as market conditions become more welcoming of ecommerce in the Middle Eastern countries, the early players have already taken the lead in the race.
Embitel is proud to be associated with some of the early successful ecommerce brands of the Middle East across various sectors.
This is a round-up of some of our successful Magento implementations, where we partnered with some of the reputed business groups of the Middle East to help them leverage ecommerce technology and achieve their business goals.
Magento customizations, integrations and mobile responsive design
Alosra Supermarket, Bahrain’s leading retailer in the high-end grocery sector, was looking to offer a quality online shopping experience to match its long-standing legacy.
Alosra, on their journey of digital transformation, faced following issues with their existing Magento implementation:
- The existing Magento set-up did not support various business functions due to faulty customizations and system integrations
- Slow website response time as the webstore was not upgraded to the latest Magento Enterprise Version
- The webstore was not designed to be mobile responsive
To overcome these problems, the Embitel team upgraded the webstore to the latest and stable enterprise version of Magento, re-built the required customizations and system integrations and also implemented a new responsive design theme.
Making Magento work for your unique needs: Managed IT services for infrastructure management and support
Malabar Gold & Diamonds is a leading India-based precious jewelry retailer with a large customer base in the Middle East.
Though Malabar had a shopping portal on Magento 1.7, their business requirements called for extensive customization:
- dynamic pricing as per the fluctuating gold rate,
- ordering custom jewelry,
- group buy, gift cards,
- a separate website for global shoppers…
These features and more were implemented with the required extensions as well the ability to scale up for festival-related offers and promotions.
Embitel has helped Malabar increase sales and the order value per customer with a website that functions efficiently and is suited to the needs of the niche jewelry business.
Malabar has continued its collaboration with Embitel by availing of our managed IT services for its webstore.
ERP integration and omnichannel webstore implementation
Jarir Bookstore is a leading listed company in Saudi Arabia, selling school and office stationery and supplies.
As ecommerce consultants, we partnered with Jarir in their omnichannel journey in two phases.
The first phase involved resolving ERP and UX issues to manage the inventory as well make an easy-to-use Arabic language version on the webstore.
In the second phase of the project, Embitel and Jarir collaborated to deliver an omnichannel retail shopping experience to their customers across the webstore and brick-and-mortar outlets.
Implementation of the following features resulted in an increase of over 100% in traffic within a year and organic increase in sales.
- Consistent Returns and Exchange policy across channels: Webstore customers can return and exchange in-store
- Integration of Jarir discount program for web-store customers
- Webstore cataloguing: Entire catalogue is managed in ERP and synced with Magento.
- End-to-end integration of webstore with Aramex Shipping partner for seamless fulfillment
- Integration of shipping manifestation process with the webstore powered by Magento Enterprise Edition
You can read more about Embitel’s work on these projects on their case study pages:
- Alosra
- Malabar Gold & Diamonds
- Rebuilding Jarir.com – the ERP and UX issues!
- Going Omnichannel – consistent Jarir experience across channels
What is m-commerce (mobile commerce)?
M-commerce (mobile commerce) is the buying and selling of goods and services through wireless handheld devices such as cellular telephone and personal digital assistants (PDAs). Known as next-generation e-commerce, m-commerce enables users to access the Internet without needing to find a place to plug in.
Source :Search Mobile Computing
