E-Commerce: Online Shopping & Group Buying- TWDA July-August Newsletter

“Our work is not only business, its life time
commitment”
E-Commerce: Online Shopping & Group Buying July-August 2012
Issue No.17| July 2012

In This Issue
E-payment
Future in MENA

Exclusive inter
view with Souq
Marketing
Manager

Exclusive inter
view with
Dare’N’Deal
CEO

Top stories from top performers in MENA and
special section about Olympics 2012 @TWDigitalAds
/TWDigitalads

@TWDigitalAds| /TWDigitalAds TWDA| Issue No.17 |Social Media & Content Department

Table of Contents
July-August
2012
Issue No. 17

PG 2 PG 3 PG 4
Editorial Case Study Market News
Namshi| Are they doing it What’s new in digital
right?

PG 5-6 PG 7 PG 8-11
Industry News Industry Trends View From
What’s new in fashion How people innovate
The Top
Top players local & Global

PG 12 PG 13-17 PG 18
Spot On TWDA Inspires Socialize
WAMDA CoE E- Exclusive interview with Startups, Blogs, new pag-
Commerce Event Dare N Deal CEO & Souq es & more
Marketing Manager

PG 19 PG 20-26 PG 27-30
TWDA Zoom How To & Viral Digital
Viral videos & Tips
What’s interesting Campaigns
Analysis, top ads & More

PG 29-33 Fun Section – Olympic Section
www.twdigitalads.com All Copyrights Reserved to TWDA © 2012


@TWDigitalAds| /TWDigitalAds Issue No.17 |TWDA| Social Media & Content Department

Exclusive: Interview
with Abdellatif Olama
CEO & founder of Dare
N Deal

Editorial
What is Namshi &
how it Generates
Sales?

E-Commerce: Online Shopping & Group Buying
How often do you shop online? Do you We in TWDA, believe in new startups and
trust to put your credit card number online? their value in our development, that is why
Do you think that e-commerce has a future we zoomed in on some of the e-commerce
in MENA? All these questions and more start-ups in Egypt like Zoboon & Eshtery.
will be answered in TWDA July newslet- Do you know what social commerce is?
ter , discussing the e-commerce market in You will also be getting a closer look on its
MENA. benefits and its tips and tricks.

We will be taking a closer look in the na- We covered an event that happened last
ture of group buying in Egypt and how it June in Amman which is CoE E-Commerce
boomed locally and regionally. Our main event, discussing e-commerce in MENA.
Case Study this month will be about some- We have dedicated a special section for the
thing you may have seen its ads during the Olympics covering all the online buzz
first quarter of 2012 which is Namshi. We about the games that happened in the re-
will be taking a closer look on their social gion.
and digital activity.

Our highlight in this issue is an exclusive Hope you find July Newsletter fruitful and
interview with Dare n Deal CEO & founder resourceful and make sure you tell us what
Abdellatif Olama. He reveled great secrets topic you think we should discuss next
about his strategy and what are other strate- month.
gies competitor like Offerna & Living- We cant wait to hear from you!
Social. Also he reveled important numbers /TwDigitalAds
about revenues of Group Buying websites @TwDigitalAds
in Egypt.

E-payment took a huge part in this newslet-
ter, we discussed all the payment methods
available in MENA & in Egypt in particu-
lar, with highlights on e-masary & Fawry.

CEO Quote
We believe in the value of online content and we know how important e-
commerce is and how it will boom in the upcoming years in MEAN, yet still the
payment issue is unsolved.

“If Content is King, than Billing is King Kong” -Mostafa Gamrah

2 www.twdigitalads.com All Copyrights Reserved to TWDA © 2012


Namshi.com| Are They Doing It Right? C ASE
S TUDY
NAMSHI.com lunched, January 12, Digital Success
2012 –Key component of Namshi’s
strategy is to improve online shopping
experience of footwear, apparel &
fashion accessories

Namshi.com was officially launched in
January 2012. Having initially started
with delivery to the UAE, with focusing
on bringing the fashion trends & styles
in the Middle East and North Africa.
the website has grown rapidly not only in terms of building a diverse selection of brands
and styles, but also in increasing its customer base across the region offering a wide vari-
ety of international brands and styles, many of which are exclusive brands unavailable in
regional retail stores.

Namshi is not just aiming to capture a portion of the e-commerce market. But aiming to
capture a portion of the retail market in the region. The site currently offers free delivery
of goods across the GCC and in Egypt, using Aramex as its shipping partner, building its
inventory to include about 20,000 products distributed from Dubai. The site has attracted
investment from the Berlin-based firm Rocket Internet with huge investment

Namshi.com is ranked #14,933 in the world; a low rank means that this website gets a lot
of visitors. This site is worth $407,233 USD and advertising revenue is $643 USD per day,
now also featuring a new Arabic language interface, which is poised to become the re-
gion's preferred shopping destination.

Social Media Success
The process of buying is one of the best features at Namshi.com
The customer makes an order online, logistics team picks the items from ware-
house, and then we immediately deliver
directly to the customer for free. They
even allow exchanges and refunds to
make sure you wouldn’t lose your money
in case the sizes aren’t as you wished for.

Namshi doesn’t only have a great website
but also a very successful active Facebook
Fan page with more than 225,000 likes
and tabs of Twitter, Seasons Sales, Imme-
diate Purchase Tab, New Arrivals and
more. Yet another highlight to Namshi’s
success is the fact that they are one of the
first e-commerce sites in the region to
activate the facebook shop, yet transactions are still done through the site not the
app. Namshi did an aggressive Facebook campaign in the first quarter of 2012 and
theories reveals that 45% of its sales and Facebook fans have increased due to that
Facebook campaign.



The use of online television sites has Facebook reveals it has more than 83 M ARKET
doubled during Ramadan million fake users
W ATCH
Top News in
Digital

More News

The broadcasters MBC and OSN, based in On the heels of escalating scepticism about
Dubai, said use of their online-TV services Marissa Mayer Appoint-
the value of Facebook advertising, the com-
had increased during the Holy Month. pany has revealed that more than 83 million ed as Yahoo New CEO
As a top executive at
Sam Barnett, the chief executive of MBC of its 955 million users may be fakes
Google for the past 13
Group, said that the viewership had doubled The company provided more details about the years, Marissa Mayer
on its Shahid.net, which allows users to categorization: of its nearly one billion users, played an instrumental role
watch TV shows on demand for free. 4.8 per cent are fake accounts maintained in in developing many of the
In the first 15 days of Ramadan MBC had 15 addition to a user’s primary account; 2.4 per services that have torment-
cent are misclassified accounts, wherein users ed Yahoo as its appeal
million media views, which compares to 16 waned among Web surfers,
million for the entire period of Ramadan in have falsely created accounts for businesses
advertisers and investors.
2011. OSN also said the use of its online-TV or other non-human entities, which should Now, Yahoo is turning to its
service had risen 100% compared with the actually be represented on Facebook through longtime nemesis to fix eve-
period immediately before Ramadan. Pages, not personal profiles; and 1.5 per cent rything that has gone wrong
They have seen double the number of views of its user base is made up of “undesirable” while Google Inc.
and registrations over the first week . accounts that serve up spam or otherwise
breach the social network’s terms of service.
Hotmail is replaced with Outlook Mail Middle East and Africa
Youtube Launches Ramadan Channel
lead in global ad spend
growth Internet advertising
saw the biggest increases,
with advertisers spending
12.1% more in Q1 2012
than one year prior. During
that time, ad spend overall
increased 3.1% globally.
Dollars devoted to TV ad-
vertising grew 4% in North
America, second only to
outdoor, and a respectable
7.5% in Latin America. How-
YouTube has announced the launch of an ever, in the developing
Microsoft is overhauling its free webmail online channel dedicated to Ramadan countries of the Middle East
service, dropping the Hotmail brand it has shows. The channel will feature more than and Africa, the TV ad spend
used since acquiring the product in 1998, grew a whopping 33.8%.
50 'premium' shows.
and adopting the name Outlook.com.
Unilever is the main commercial sponsor of
The revamped service will help sort messages the site, through its brands Lipton and Twitter penetration in-
as they arrive and allow users to make inter- Knorr. Internet users in the Middle East and creases 3,000% in Saudi
net calls on Skype. It said the move would North Africa watch an average of 167 mil- Arabia Half of the king-
help tackle the problem of "cluttered" inbox- lion YouTube videos a day, ranking it the dom’s active users log in
es. The action may also be designed to win second highest region globally in terms of daily while more than 50 per-
over users of Google's rival Gmail service. views. It is the first time YouTube has aired cent access the micro blog-
a dedicated Ramadan channel, in what is ging site via their
smartphone Arabic accounts
Microsoft said that in many cases email had the most important month of the year for for 1.2 percent of all public
become a "chore" because its users accounts the Arab TV industry. tweets.
had become "overloaded" with material.


Visa and the National Bank of Egypt Offer E-commerce solutions as
part of summer campaign
I NDUSTRY
N EWS
To satisfy the customers demands, the National Bank of Egypt (NBE) and Visa recent- Keeping you up
ly found the online purchasing solutions at providing customers with secure, conven-
ient and reliable means to make the customers purchase via the internet and pro- to date
mote e-commerce growth in Egypt.

NBE launched a simple-to-use Visa service that
Interesting Fact
confirms the cardholder's identity with an extra
password for online transactions. The service will
ensure NBE Visa cardholders will benefit from the
security, convenience and efficiency of Visa when
choosing to shop online. With internet penetra-
tion in Egypt at over 30% of the total population as Researchers say
of January 2011 and expected to grow by 40% an-
that they can
nually, the potential to grow e-commerce is sub-
stantial. determine 90 per-
cent of a person’s
And NBE has recently started their summer cam- personality from
paign that will start from first of June to 31 of Au-
gust with 1000 prizes to be won for the Visa Cred-
their footwear
it cards to drive purchase transactions over cash.
The National Bank of Egypt is pleased to up-level
its offering to customers and work closely with
Visa on these great initiatives with providing value-added security services to their cus-
tomers which they think it is crucial.
and which is also a safe and convenient e-commerce environment in Egypt

E-commerce picks up in Middle East UAE missing out on billion-dollar e-commerce trading

While the Middle East has been slow to The UAE is missing out on the US$680 billion (Dh2.49bn) global e-commerce
adopt e-commerce, it seems doing business industry, with just 5 per cent of businesses transacting online.
online is now gaining in popularity.
The majority of businesses in the Emirates do not sell products on the inter-
According to one estimate the sector in- net, and only 11 per cent make purchases via the Web, according to a survey
creased by 300% last year. by the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA).
That comes despite, 44 per cent of UAE employees routinely using a comput-
One obstacle in the way of growth is the lack er at work, according to the survey.
of a decent postal service in the region, but "What is very low is take-up of e-commerce - online trading, buying and sell-
Jordan-based Aramex has come up with a ing," said Fintan Healy, the executive director of regulatory affairs at the TRA.
novel way of getting parcels to their custom- "A high degree of employees use computers at work," he added. "There
ers. seems to be a bit of a disconnect there."


The Fancy Shop I NDUSTRY
T RENDS
The Fancy is a social photo shar- How People
ing website and app created by Joseph
Einhorn. The Fancy describes itself as Innovate
“part store, blog, magazine and wish list"
Its objective is to connect its users
through shared tastes and the “things”
they find interesting. It has been de-
scribed as a number of things, such as "a
collection of beautiful stuff" and “a kind of
fashion magazine for the blog age.

The Fancy has moved into ecommerce
rapidly and aggressively. The New York-
based startup only enabled ecommerce
on its website in February, but is already
averaging $50,000 a week in sales among
a registered user-base of nearly 1 million.

ETSY-The Handmade Shop Etsy is an e-
commerce website focused on
handmade or vintage items as
well as art and craft supplies.
These items cover a wide
range including art, photog-
raphy, clothing, jewelry, food,
bath and beauty products,
quilts, knick-knacks, and toys.
Many individuals also sell craft
supplies such as beads, wire,
and jewelry-making tools. All
vintage items must be at least
20 years old. The site follows
in the tradition of open craft
fairs, giving sellers personal
storefronts where they list

Google Wallet
Unlike your leather wallet, Google Wallet is password protected. And if you ever
lose your phone you can remotely disable your mobile wallet from the web.
The new version of the Google Wallet app supports all your credit and debit cards.
Carry them with you on your phone or computer. Shop faster, smarter and safer,
in-store and online,
Google Wallet now supports all major credit and debit cards, from Visa®, Master-
Card®, American Express®, and Discover®. Google Wallet stores your cards online
so they're with you wherever you go in the real or virtual worlds.



Shopify|Create Your Online Store Now I NDUSTRY
T RENDS
How People
Innovate

Shopify offers a complete ecommerce solution

Shopify is a hosted ecommerce solution that allows you to set up and run your own
online store. Pick an ecommerce website template, list your products, accept credit
card orders, and ship your goods — all with a few clicks of the mouse. With Shopify
it's easy to sell online and there's no software to download or maintain. In your store
administration area you can add new inventory, organize your products into collec-
tions, create blog posts, manage content pages and more. You can sell virtually any-
thing using Shopify, from physical goods like t-shirts, to services like yoga courses, to
digital downloads like ebooks.

What is Social Commerce?
Social commerceis a subset of electronic commerce that involves using social media,
online media that supports social interaction, and user contributions to assist in the
online buying and selling of products and services. Social commerce is the use of social
networks in the context of e-commerce transactions.

The term social commerce was introduced by Yahoo! in November 2005 to describe a
set of online collaborative shopping tools such as shared pick lists, user ratings and oth-
er user-generated content-sharing of online product information and advice

Facebook Commerce
Facebook commerce, f-commerce, and f-commerce refer to the buying and selling of
goods or services through Facebook, either through Facebook directly or through the
Facebook Open Graph. In March 2010, 1.5 million businesses had pages on Face-
book that were built using Facebook Markup Language (FBML). A year later, in March
2011, Facebook deprecated FBML and adoptediframes.Among other things, this al-
lowed developers to gather more information about their Facebook visitors.

Twitter Commerce
Brazil is a pioneer in the industry with the platform Plu$tter, integrated payment sys-
tem PagSeguro, meets the needs of ordinary users and even large businesses. To make
purchases, the site has a system that reports in real time the status of transactions via
direct message (DM).



Souq.com V IEW F ROM
Souq.com was established in 2005 to become the largest e-commerce site in the
T HE T OP
Arab world covering Saudi Arabia, UAE, Jordan, Kuwait and Egypt and soon ex- Top Players
panding to new markets. Local & Global

Souq.com's idea is very similar to Amazon's and eBay's it's where Sellers and
buyers can meet up easily and safe lt sell or buy the products they are demand-
ing for,

Souq.com is working on facilitating the online purchasing transactions, and it
has been pioneering the field of e-commerce in the Middle East with the best
prices and offers, and the souq.com team is spread in many different regions so
they can satisfy all the users wherever they are to make the online shopping
safe and easy.

Souq.com also posts some of its latest products and updates on its Facebook
fan page that has more than 180,000 likes, where you can also ask about any
prices and information and get the reply shortly.

Also, Souq recently acquired sukar.com" the Middle East's first and online private
shopping club" Sukar offers prepaid payment options, and has seen usage in-
crease by 3 and a half times since February 2011. Prepaid channels now ac-
count for 70% of all of the site’s payments, compared to 20% the same time
last year.

One of the success factors for Souq, is that it gives the opportunity for any product own-
er to open his own online shop, and have his own profile and domain to portray his
products.

What differs Souq from any other online brands, is the fact that it concentrate highly on
digital advertising, specially during high seasons like Ramadan,



LivingSocial to Pull Out of MENA V IEW F ROM
T HE T OP
LivingSocial is planning to pull out of the Middle East just one year after entering the Top Players
market through the acquisition of a homegrown player.
Local & Global
LivingSocial is a website that offers daily discounts on a various products and services
such as travelling that can be purchased easily online,

LivingSocial was founded as Hungry Machine in 2007 by four employees
from Revolution Health Group just as a Visual Bookshelf application on Facebook. That
has let users to share their favorite reads with their friends

In June 2011, GoNabit operates in the UAE, Egypt, Lebanon and Jordan, and claims to
have saved consumers more than $5m in 2010-2011.Group buying websites typically
sign up a range of businesses to offer discounts, and take a percentage of the reve-
nue.

Now the daily deals giant, based in the United States and one of the world's largest
after Groupon, is considering selling its business in the region amid intense competi-
tion from rival sites.

LivingSocial is looking to sell its subscriber base in the UAE, Egypt and Lebanon, ac-
cording to sources with knowledge of the negotiations who wished to remain anony-
mous.

LivingSocial is looking to sell its subscriber base, which is said to number about
750,000 recipients, with a deadline set for this month, according to informed sources.

The company is believed to be in talks with potential buyers within the Middle East.

It is as yet unclear what may happen to LivingSocial's staff based in the region,
thought to number about 90, should a sale go ahead.



Measuring Social Media Performance V IEW F ROM
T HE T OP
Top Players
Offerna Of all group buying websites, Offerna
Local & Global
with 950K fans, has the most organized
Facebook page, they are consistent in
terms of posts, yet they still lack strate-
gy and some other engaging content
other than Offerna offers and deals.
One of the weakness points in Offerna
page is the fact that they don't usualy
answer people comments and ques-
tions, and that is one of the key success
for Social Media

With 255K fans the least page with the
number of fans, but Cobone is still
Cobone
working well with Social Media, they try
to initiate different content other than
offers and deals and they work very
hard to answer all comments and in-
quires for clients.

With only 45K fans LivingSocial is at
LivingSocial the end of the Group Buying Funnel, Market shares
yet they try to flourish their content June 2012:
and write the offers in an appealing
way. Still one of the main problems of
LivingSocial is the lack of Arabic con- 66% DnD, 14%
tent, even of Living Social addresses Offerna, 13% LS,
the niche they never should fail to 7% Cobone
have Arabic posts once in a while

Competing for first place with Dare n Deal
Offerna DnD has 976K fans. They
lack some strategy on the page but
they are the only ones who work on
providing different kind of fun con-
tent on their page on a regular ba-
sis, Their posting is consistent and
they tone of voice they use is mod-
erate



E-Payment Methods in MENA V IEW F ROM
T HE T OP
E-payment is still an issue in Closer look on
MENA, particularly in Egypt
specially after PayPal closed e-patment
the gate in Egypt due to
theft and online Fraud prob-
lems.

Some people feel insecure
while purchasing products
online, that is way most of
the websites offer COD
(Cash on Delivery) yet there
is still a problem in purchas-
ing products from online
shops like Amazon and
eBay.

There was an attempt to
solve this problem by cre-
ating solutions such as One-
Card, CashU & Edfa3ly. Yet
still the e-payment is not a
solved issue.

During the past years ser-
vices like e-masary oper-
ating in Egypt and other
countries in MENA to help
consumers buy online and
even pay bills.

Also the big advancement in
Egypt or the Cash Cow as it
has been called is Fawry.

Fawry is a payment service
available through banks and
a nationwide network of
retailers and also Egypt Post
offices, that enables you to
pay for your bills or recharge
different services like, re-
charging your mobile
phones or other services like
your CashU account.

Yet still the e-payment solu-
tion is not solved in Egypt



WAMDA CoE E-Commerce Event S POT O N !
Inustry Top
CoE (Celebration of Entrepre- Events
neurship) E-Commerce was
held on June 2nd in Amman,
the aim of the event was to
gather industry experts and
startups sharing trends, chal-
lenges and opportunities the e-
commerce sector offers. The
main focus of the event was
the MENA region, but speakers
from all over the world came
to bring their experience.

The Event was live streamed
and there where some Google hangouts from some of the talks. The event was com-
posed of two days, day one was speed mentoring sessions from industry top innovators,
day 2 was all about the speakers. While the Google+ Hangout On Air was an experi-
ment, the first global test of the platform, it turned out to be a successful element of
CoE, proving that it's a great tool for information sharing. I'm sure it will be used in many
ways globally, especially in the MENA region, for protest coverage, sharing educational
classes and other social broadcasts focused on activism among other topics.

Demet Mutlu, Founder & CEO of
Trendyol.com

Demet Mutlu is the Founder & CEO of
Trendyol.com, Turkey’s leading fashion
e-commerce site. With over 5 million
members, Trendyol.com has become
one of the biggest fashion sites in the
world shortly after opening its doors in
March 2010.
Martin Waldenstrom, CEO of
CashU
Martin joined Maktoob group in 2005,
then the largest Arab Online Portal, and
joined cashU in 2009 as a CEO and Di-
rector. He is credited with building it to
be an innovative alternative payment
solutions for E-commerce business in
MENA region.



Dare & Deal| Going Above & Beyond TWDA
During TWDA hunt for all the hot news and trends in e-commerce and group buying , we
I NSPIRES
had to take a closer look on one of the top group buying websites in the region which is Inspiring
Dare N Deal, and we had an interview with their CEO Abdellatif Olama. Take a look
about what he had to say about the group buying market and how the OT Venture ac-
Interviews
quisition assisted them.

Why group buying? what potential did you see in that project that helped in making
your decision?
Group buying boomed in the USA during early 2009 when the US was suffering from the
economic crisis and the credit crunch. The group buying business was immune to the
turbulent state of the economy and even catered to businesses and consumers in such
times. Many businesses found useful as a way to finance marketing through the sales of
their own products/services and consumers found it as a good way to save money and
try out new products and services.

Where do you see Dare n Deal between competitors in terms of position & size?
DARE'n'DEAL (DnD) is the market leader in Egypt and the fastest growing e-commerce
website in KSA.
 Market shares based on revenue year to date: 62% DnD, 19% Offerna, 10% Cobone,
9% LivingSocial (LS)
 Market shares based on revenue June 2012: 66% DnD, 14% Offerna, 13% LS, 7%
Cobone
 Market shares based on number of coupons sold year to date: 65% DnD, 16% Offer-
na, 14% LS, 5% Cobone
 Market shares based on number of coupons sold June 2012: 62% DnD, 21% LS, 12%
Offerna, 5% Cobone



TWDA
I NSPIRES
Inspiring
Interviews

Where do you see Dare n Deal between competitors in terms of strategy?
DnD's strategy is to cover the largest mass of the market by displaying the largest
number of offers and all types of products and services. E.g., DnD offers luxurious
spa deals as well as koshary deals and both are able to achieve high sales volumes
through DnD. DnD focuses the most on online presence through the biggest affili-
ate network and aggressive online ad campaigns.

LivingSocial plays on a niche, attempting to cater to merchants who appreciate
LS's reporting system, which attempt to help with the profiling and further analysis
of purchasers. LS utilizes its international brand as the world's second largest group
buying player to obtain good offers and compromises a lot on its commission with “Plan Less, Gen-
merchants in an attempt to penetrate the market.
erate Sales Early,
Offerna changed strategies many times, which hurt the performance of the com- Sell More “
pany a lot. They first worked on targeting the higher end consumer market, then
took a more general approach. Offerna markets itself through a mix of online and
offline activities. Current strategy seems to be based on buffering good deals for
some time, suffering from low sales during these periods, then launching the buff-
ered deals during a short time period, increasing sales during this period and
attempting to grab the attention of the consumers.

Cobone seem like they were the biggest spenders on ad campaigns with a mix of
online, radio and PR coverage that resulted in very low sales. Current strategy in
Egypt is to minimize losses by implementing an aggressive cost-cutting scheme.
Cobone is still the group buying incumbent in KSA and is trying to protect its lead-
ership using a strategy that focuses on attempting to retain existing merchants and
signing multiple long-term contracts with new merchants.



Will this be the maximum dare n deal will be doing or are you looking for an ex-
TWDA
I NSPIRES
pansion strategy?
DnD just expanded to KSA and is growing there very fast. Further geographical ex-
pansion is expected within 2012 in the Gulf region. Expansion is also expected in
the product range offered by DnD to cover both products that are totally new to
Inspiring
the online domain in the region and products that are currently offered by other e- Interviews
commerce platforms. DnD will expand very aggressively.

How did you utilize social media to meet your marketing objectives? and did it
add value to your business?
We have an in-house social media team that provides constant communication
with visitors and customers of DnD. DnD also is the only major group buying web-
site in the region that provides facebook communication on every deal page on the
website. This has helped DnD ease a lot the concerns of people who are new to the
experience of buying online, who actually represent the majority of DnD's current
customer base. Social media were also the source of a lot of feedback that allows
us to always understand the market's opinion and improve our offers continuously.

Did new media influence your sales? how?
New media have been the main source that triggered the word of mouth about
DnD, resulting the incredible growth DnD witnessed over the past year.

What are the main 2 obstacles you have faced when you started the project?
Finding the right people to join my team and choosing the right partner to accept
funding from.

How did the acquisition of OT Ventures benefit your business, and do you think
your case resembles Living Social acquisition of GoNabIt?

OT Ventures benefited DnD by immediately enabling a large number of partnership
in record time (e.g., with Mobinil, ARPU+, otlob.com, masrawy.com, MSN Arabia,
Fawry, etc.). The business development work done by OT Ventures and the experi-
ence (combined with strong work ethics) in the online field have been impressive.

The acquisition of OT Ventures is different from the LS acquisition of GoNabit. The
main reason is that OT Ventures acquired DnD to use the DnD team in creating the
e-commerce strategy for the group (LINKonLINE being an icon of internet in the
region) and move forward with a plan to dominate e-commerce domain in the
Middle East. LS acquired GoNabit seemingly to cover as many countries in the re-
gion as possible with a very shallow presence (i.e., with low sales and low market
share but a constant flow of a few deals). GoNabit is LS's tick on the Middle East
box in terms of presence but is negligible in terms of population it is serving and in
sales volumes.

What advice you want to give to business owners and new startups?
Plan less, generate sales early, sell more.



A Closer Look on Souq.com TWDA
During our Market Scan, we had to interview the leading Online Shopping web- I NSPIRES
site in the MENA region . We had an interview with Nardeen Abdulla, Souq Egypt Inspiring
Marketing Manager . Interviews

Omar Sodoudi General Manager
Tell us about Souq.com how did it come to be?
Souq.com is the largest online retailer in the Arab world, providing buyers and
sellers with a convenient, competitive and safe shopping experience, across the
widest selection of brands and products in the region.
From humble beginnings in 2005, Souq.com now attracts over 7.5 million unique
visitors per month - a figure which is growing in double digits monthly - from coun-
tries across the Middle East and North Africa. Headquartered in Dubai, Souq.com
offices spread in other countries of the region like Kuwait, Jordan, Kingdom of Sau-
di Arabia and Egypt.

Customers benefit from easy access to great deals every day on Souq.com, which
offers a range of payment options to suit customers' preferences, with door to
door delivery on purchased items. Souq.com is responsible for and manages the
entire purchase process, tracking the shipped merchandise and verifying its deliv-
ery and only when the customer approves the item is the seller paid, making
Souq.com the Arab world's most trusted online shopping destination.
Our alexa Ranking:

Nardeen Abdulla Marketing
Manager



What security risk does ecommerce involve? What Are the Biggest Barriers to
TWDA
I NSPIRES
Souq?
Online payments ! We are living in country most of the people don’t have Credited
card and if they have they are not convinced to use it online
However we are providing cash on delivery –Cash u & Fawry
Inspiring
Interviews
What are your plans for the future?
Make every person in the Arab world buy online whatever needed for life

How Can Small Businesses Take Advantage of E-Commerce?
For businesses, Souq.com is the regions e-commerce partner of choice, with brand-
ed online retail stores and easy payment methods for buyers. Souq.com supports
businesses' needs, including marketing; cash flow and product distribution; consul-
tancy and advice on e-commerce; and mentorship for entrepreneurs.
Reach is one of the main advantage of the E-Commerce small business can reach
millions of users across the world

Does social media help in increasing your sales?
219,000 have joined our FB page -44,000 users is talking about souq.com
Defiantly social media is one of our main channels increasing awareness ,sales we
Omar Sodoudi General Manager
consider it as 2 ways of communication so the users can give us comments what
they need what they are looking for kind of creating a direct relation with the souq
users

How does utilizing digital advertising and Adwords in particular help in achieving
your goals and targets?
Who are your main competitors in Egypt and in The region?
Offline line market is still our biggest competitor also with some international E-
commerce web sites

What would you say are the biggest obstacles for e-retail in the region?
Lake of education and awareness about e commerce and selling online, said Omar
El Manialawy Deal Of The Day Manager

Nardeen Abdulla Marketing
Manager



Zoboon ”Get surprised with every shopping experience”
S OCIALIZE
Startups, social
blogs new pages
Zoboon is a very fun and easy cell-
phone software that offers you many & More
rewards during your daily shopping and
restaurants/cafes hangouts with
friends, which has been very common
lately especially on Facebook with its
page that has over 20,000 likes.

As you are out for shopping or dinning,
the program”Zoboon” will keep
counting up your points “at more than
20 merchants “which you can exchange
later with many amazing gifts, you can
also be a Silver or Golden customer at
top stores and have your exclusive rewards.

All what you need is just your smartphone that you will easily download the program
on it, and whenever you shop you just show your Zoboon ID to collect your points eve-
ry time you shop at any of Zoboon’s member stores such as “Levi’s,Alef Bookstores,
Gloria Jean’s, Timberland, Vans, Coffee Shop Company and much more very usable

Eshtery First Virtual Store in Egypt
Eshtery is a mobile based shopping application that was founded this year in Egypt, it repli-
cates the offline shopping experience in e-commerce format, The company prints engaging
QR (Quick Response) codes on boards and walls.

You will just need to go to Eshtery.me Website and install the application to your
Smartphone then you can enjoy your shopping for a variety of everyday items such as gro-
ceries, food, gifts, etc by simply scanning the codes under the image of the item using the
application and it will be delivered to you

all items available on the preprinted walls from restaurants or grocery stores are preloaded
onto the mobile application granting the consumer direct ordering access. Eshtery’s applica-
tions currently run on Nokia, Android, IOS, J2ME and Blackberry platforms.



Agzakhana the Middle East first Online pharmacy TWDA Z OOM
What we think is
It was founded by the 24 year old en-
trepreneur Ahmed Shabana who also interesting
founded Pharmarecruit.com, it's a web-
site that serves an online recruitment
portal linking pharmacy graduates with
the industry.

It has almost 15,000 likes on its Face-
book Page,where you can find tabs to
the purchasing links,offers,locations
and photos of the products to make it
easier for the customers instead of
searching it up.

AgzaKhana.com provides free consultations to its customers From Sunday-Thursday between
10 am and 5 am, AgzaKhana's customers or patients, can also ask a pharmacist about their
symptoms and what medication they should take through the internet.

Aghzakhana also has an iPhone application with more than 30000 extra updated products and
also added the new "Directory" feature allowing users to locate the nearest healthcare facility,
spa, or gym..

Egypt should support such ideas that helps our national and societal development to grow big-
ger We can't wait to see what else he comes up with.

Edfa3ly.com e-Payment Solution

Since you sure have noticed that most of foreigner shopping websites especially American ones
Don't usually work with Egyptian credit cards, now you can purchase whatever you want from web-
sites
like“eBay, amazon, Victoria's secret and more" Without any problems because Edfa3ly.com has
found a solution for that

Edfa3ly.com gives you the permission to use PayPal in Egypt and it will be shipped safely from US to
your door.
So it’s just simple like this; you just choose what you want from any American website
like eBay ,Amazon , BestBuy , etc
then submit your order through Edfa3ly.com Website that will show you the final price you are sup-
posed to pay and after the confirmation your item should be delivered within 14-21 business days.

You can also get extra info about Edfa3ly.com through its Facebook Fan page that has almost
415,000 likes ,which has YouTube, Twitter and Contact tabs and also a Calculator app that makes it
simple for you to calculate your shipping prices.



Online Shopping in The Arab World H OW T O
Tips, Tricks &
The Experience of Online Sopping Infographics

Kuwait & UAE are
MENA top Lead-
ers in Online
Shopping. Egypt
Comes Last

Who is Shopping Online

Online Shopping Concerns



Tips, Tricks &
Online Shopping Motivation Infographics

Middle East ac-
quires 40%
from the total
online shop-
ping market,
while Asia Pa-
cific holds 49%
What is Bought Online

Hotel Reserva-
tions to acquire
26% from total
Online Shop-
Products Category Demographics ping Globally

Airline Tickets is
to acquire 32%
of total online
Shopping glob-
ally



Tips, Tricks &
How Do They Prefer to Pay Infographics

What is Bought Online

Average Payment For Single Online Purchase

32% of
MENA Inter-
net users
buy online



Facebook Shop Explained H OW T O
Facebook shops have emerged dur-
Tips, Tricks &
ing the last three years, giving Infographics
brands the space to create their
own facebook shop in their brand
pages. This concept gives fans the
access to shop while they are doing
their daily social activities on social
networks. Studies have revealed
that the Facebook shop have in-
creased sales in the first 2 years for
many brands, while others say that
Facebook shop will soon demolish.

We at TWDA believe that this is
worth a try in the region, as it
worked quite well for Namshi and
many other brands. We believe that
the brands in Egypt that can benefit from the Facebook Shop, are brands like
CompuMe, Radio Shack , Mobile Shop

Also toy stores, like Toys R us, due to the fact that kids from ages 7-14 are living
most of their lives on Facebook.

Top Worldwide Facebook Shops

3 of the top Facebook stores are
Lady Gaga Store, selling Music
and different lady Gaga products,
Also the Liverpool Store selling t-
shirts, caps and more. Third is the
breast cancer store selling differ-
ent pink goods to help support
the breast cancer cause and all
money are donated


Twitter for E-Commerce H OW T O
Tips, Tricks &
Infographics

Twitter is a powerful tool for all ecommerce store owners, and can easily be used to in-
crease customer engagement and sales.
You need to start thinking of twitter as a public complaint department, activate twitter as
your main customer service tool. Then you can start making transactions and delivering
directly to consumers.
 Sales, discounts, and new products
 Ask fun questions
 Ask for opinions on which new prototype your Twitter community likes best
 Ask about their favorite products and brands
 Offer to send them free stuff.

Pinterest Drives E-Commerce Sales

Pinterest is now
the 3rd most
popular social
network site in
the world, and
ecommerce
stores can lever-
age its popularity
to significantly
increase traffic
and sales.



Nefsak.com H OW T O
Tips, Tricks &
Infographics

Nefsak is the first e-commerce websites that resembles Amazon in Egypt, and
when we say first we mean that is 100% owned and operating in Egypt. The owner
Sherif Nassar objective was to create the first bilingual e-commerce website in
Egypt. Today, Nefsak.com has quickly become one of Egypt’s most successful and
recognizable websites, with 1,500 active registered users, growing by the day, and
selling more than 5,500 products.

Nefsak Owner claims that they depend mainly on Google Adwords as hub for their
online sales revenue “Google AdWords gives nearly 60% of their business return
and about 85% of new acquisitions” .

Yet from our analysis we came up with the fact the Nefsak is not using Adwords
aggressively to compete with its main competitor Souq. Souq is practically every-
where around the web, they target forums, blogs, websites and even on Youtube,
they are basically dominating GDN in their sector.

What Nefsak needs to do, is work on targeting and optimizing their campaign
more by that they will reach double sales in no time.

From the Social Media Point of View, Nefsak is doing quite well with 150K Face-
book fans, and consistent level of posting, and different types of engaging con-
tent. Yet they lack strategy and posting techniques and they need to boost the
quality of all their content in terms of text, pictures and videos



Top Viral Videos in Egypt in July-August V IRAL
V IDEOS
Most watched
videos on the web

Most Buzzing
Videos

Top Viral Videos Worldwide in July-August

The online content during the month of Ramadan is 45% higher than any other time in the region especially Egypt.
From ads to TV series, shows and more. Video content acquires 67% from the total online content. Top videos in
Egypt during this last month where Mobinil, new corporate ad, which is a song showing different sub-cultures in
Egypt, this song-ad highly boomed during the first 2 days while it reached 250k views in the first 2 days.

Other videos were about one of the prankster shows in Ramadan “EL Hokm Ba3d El Mozawla” where one of the
guests Slaps the presenter and crew members after they tell them he is on Israeli TV.

Also one of the most shared videos, was a the one for one of Ramadan TV series “EL Zawja El Rab3a” (The Fourth
Wife), scene was between Mostafa Shabaan and one of his wives Aiten Amer. People hated the scene and they
made fun about it but the famous word “‫ ”احبوش‬didn't fail from being the most buzzing word during the month of
Ramadan.



With Ramadan approaching, the digital scene saw a big jump late July in digital advertis-
ing mostly by FMCGs, restaurants and TV Channels. This month was also an opportunity D IGITAL
for new industries to join the digital realm, such as charity organizations
C AMPAIGNS
Top campaigns in
FMCG Campaigns Analysis the region
Many products have launched competitions during the month of Ramadan such as Activ-
ia and Knorr. However, they had varying online presence and on different platforms

Knorr had started a competition early July on Facebook and
continued till the middle of the month. With the start of Ram-
adan, they changed their message and increased their pres-
ence online, where they started advertising on local publish-
ers such as Maktoob in addition to Facebook.

Activia as well has started a competition in July on several
platforms asking its customers to share their stories with a
chance for it being shared on TV. They advertised for it on
Facebook and several local publishers like Masrawy and
Cairo360.

Others also incorporated Ramadan messages into their campaigns yet
without competitions.



FMCG Campaigns Analysis D IGITAL
Pepsi and Coca Cola on the other hand continue their yearly tradition of spreading the C AMPAIGNS
Ramadan spirit with benevolent campaigns asking customers to either donate money or
Top campaigns in
spread happiness.
the region

Restaurants & Cafes Campaigns Analysis

Few restaurants and fast food chains have been promoting their offers and new dish-
es online. However with Ramadan nearing, there was a boom in digital ads, specifi-
cally on Facebook where restaurants started promoting for their Ramadan offers and
Menus for Sohor or Iftar.

Before Ramadan



Restaurants & Cafes Campaigns Analysis
D IGITAL
C AMPAIGNS
After Ramadan Top campaigns in
the region



TV Channels Campaigns Analysis
D IGITAL
C AMPAIGNS
TV Channels, whether entertainment or news, have Top campaigns in
always had a minor presence online. However in July,
the region
this presence increased because of channels mar-
keting for their Ramadan shows. Dream TV has had a
strong presence online through Facebook and local
publishers. Other advertisers include CBC and
Youtube’s Channel “Ramadan TV”.

Recurrent and New Visitors:

Charity organizations usually have a very light presence online. However
with the start of the holy month of Ramadan, their presence has increased.
Some old advertisers have even returned to take advantage of this month



Take this quiz and see how internet savvy you are! And Know your
Online Buying Behavior Habits!
F UN
S ECTION
You search "purple jeans" in Ebay, and it returns 543900 results... do you: games, pics &
more
A. Sort by price and check sellers of the cheaper products are reliable
B. Click on the cheapest one to see more info.
C. Buy the first pair because they look fabulous! Answer Key
The pants you select have an asterisk stating to select your size carefully as
there is a stict "NO RETURNS POLICY" do you: Mostly A’s– Safe &
Savvy
A. Buy instead from a seller that accepts returns.
B. Measure yourself and check against the sizing chart to see which pair will fit
C. Check what size the pants you have on are and cross your fingers.

There is an option to either Buy Now at the price of $50, or start bidding at
$10 against five other people. Do you:

A. Research final price for similar items, if buy now price is cheaper then go with You love to shop online,
that and you do it smart, you
B. Buy now because you just KNOW it'll be cheaper that way. don't let anyone influence
C. Bid for hours on end, get carried away, and end up paying more than the buy your choice and you
now price know exactly what you
are doing

You have bought the jeans and are so happy! You wear them to a party the next day,
and the seam splits. Do you:
Mostly B’s – OK
A. Contact the seller to enquire about getting an identical replacement for the pants Online
B. Get your mum to sew up the seam.
C. Throw them out and buy another pair from the same seller

You reckon the jeans were super cool, and think the seller is awesome! You
go back to their site and find a one-of-a-kind cap that matches perfectly! Do
you:
You think you know a
good offer when you see
A. Consider whether you actually NEED this hat, don't you already have a purple one, but maybe you can
one...? do a little more homework
B. Look for other possibilities, maybe a different style! before buying again
C. Buy the cap as soon as you see it. (Can't risk anyone else grabbing it)
Mostly C’s –
Scammed
You are searching on another website and find two identical items. One is half
the price, but the seller has no feedback... Do you:

A. Decide that it's safer to go with a trusted seller than risk gettin scammed, and go
with the more expensive one.
B. You are prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt, and think that because it is You need to think again
not very much money, if you get scammed it won't really matter. before you get absolutely
C. Go for the cheaper because you need the extra cash for the Bieber Tickets! broke! Don’t go hard on
yourself!



Olympics Coverage in
MENA


KSA Women in Saudi Arabia O LYMPICS
IN MENA
London’s 2012 Olympics-Saudi
Arabian Women to Compete and
being called “Prostitutes of the
Olympics “ on Twitter ?

Saudi Arabia send their first fe-
male Olympic athletes for the
first time in Olympic histo-
ry ,which has taken a long time
for Saudi Arabia to agree to send
them

So they proudly joined the opening ceremony of the London Games, which sadly
has led them to be labeled as the "Prostitutes of the Olympics."
The moment the two female athletes appeared dressed in traditional hijabs at the
opening ceremony, the furious response on Twitter started.

Since the International Judo President Marius Vizer stated “The Saudi Arabian ath-
lete will take part in judo and she will fight according to the principle and spirit of
judo, so without a hijab,”
but according to the Huff Post Faisal decreed the women could only join the Olym-
pics if they "wear suitable clothing that fits with Sharia law, have a male guardian
with them and they do not mix with men during the games.“
Global Voices reported insults were unleashed as Twitter user Sultan Al Hilali who
spread the Hashtag "Prostitutes of the Olympics." The tweets prompted both nega-
tive and positive feedbacks, with some calling for the prosecution of Hilali.


E-Commerce: Online Shopping & Group Buying- TWDA July-August Newsletter

E-Commerce: Online Shopping & Group Buying- TWDA July-August Newsletter

Recomendados

Recomendados

Mais conteúdo relacionado

Último

Último (20)

Destaque

Destaque (20)

E-Commerce: Online Shopping & Group Buying- TWDA July-August Newsletter