In this event we have discussed the possibilities, limitations and opportunities of e-commerce in the Middle East with a special focus on the Jordanian merchant and market, we tried to understand why merchants hesitate to sell their products online and ways to persuade them to do that, we have looked at recent surveys and numbers to further understand where we stand as a country in terms of internet usage and the social network’s impact on our community, then we discussed the online shopper concerns, such as credit card usage, the importance of pre-paid visa cards and where can you get them, we also talked about payment gateways, online and offline payment methods, then we ended our session with a small presentation of our website where we explained our business model as a comparison shopping engine and hosted storefronts solution and the importance of building product’s specifications database for the Middle East.

It was very important for us as an e-commerce solution to be engaged in such events where we discuss our thoughts with educated and concerned individuals, it was a really nice experience, i would defiantly do it again.

Thanks to everyone who attended this conversion, we hope you liked it!

Special thanks for “Have A Green Day Cafe” - Omar Istanbuli

Also a special thanks to Hadeel Shehadeh for her online social networking support!

Regards to all,

Anas Alshanti

How to persuade this man to sell his products on an e-commerce website?

It’s not easy to identify why most merchants in the Middle East fear and hesitate to engage in any e-commerce business, I am sure every merchant has a pretty solid reason for it. I believe its time to investigate what those reasons are by digging deeper into the mind of a Middle Eastern merchant!

I cannot stress enough how serious this is for the growth of e-commerce in its entirety in this region, because once we start to understand their current beliefs, methods, approaches, we might ultimately change and alter their decisions!

We all know that younger merchants in the Middle East market are much more open to e-commerce and most of them know the potential and value it brings to their business success.

If you are reading this we would like you to come aboard and share with us your thoughts on the subject, tell us why do you think merchants hesitate and sometimes fear to ride the e-commerce wave? What is it that makes them ride it? What are the limitations that young merchants face in the Middle East to take a step forward with e-commerce?

Note: Please share with anyone you know might be interested in this space.

Great article; I think this is the right time to seriously think about finding solutions about issues that you have mentioned, and maybe i can help add some value here:
1- Payments:

PayPal: You can only withdraw money from your PayPal account to your Credit Card, the amount you can withdraw depends on your account limits, of course once you account is verified by PayPal they should lift those limits, generally you can withdraw $500 on daily basis and you will charged $5 per withdrawal initiated by you, for more information visit https://www.paypal.com/

2- Skrill / Moneybookers (Previously): They are my favorite payment processor you can think about them as a global payment solutions provider, they allow you to withdraw money from your eWallet directly to your Bank Account, and this is a big +, of course like everyone else your merchant account will have sending and withdrawal limits, these limits can be lifted to a No-limit account once you are verified, to know more, visit http://skrill.com/

With regards to local payment gateway providers, no offense, but are you kidding me!

Important note: i am not talking about CashU nor OneCard (both are little expensive from a merchant perspective but very well-respected solutions)

About logistics; drop shipping is great when we are talking about large companies or distributors with large volume of goods in a large country, but for smaller companies this might not be an ideal solution, some would argue that a Shared-Drop-Shipping-Facility might work for midsize companies, but generally requires a very advanced inventory management network solution. If you are on about cross-border selling, shipping should be your priority concern, it’s customs and duties – levied by the destination country – we should be worried about.

Arabic language is an integral part of the success of any e-commerce project in the middle east but it would take some time before “Standardizing Arabic e-commerce language” across all e-commerce websites in the region, meaning; to create a standard language and translations for e-commerce related content such as product naming, category and specifications

I would like to mention my friends a Dakwak.com they are creating a new technology for translating websites to multiple languages instantly, check them out!

having said that, we will be soon launching our website dokkkankom.com which is an e-commerce shopping marketplace tailored for the Middle East.

Dokkankom allows individual sellers, midsize merchants and product manufacturers to sell their products online locally, regionally and even internationally without having to worry about software installation, configuration or managing servers, we handle the technology so merchants can focus on running and growing their online stores.

Have a great day everyone!

Anas Alshanti

من المهم ان نعلم بأن نجاح اي مشروع يكون بفهم واستيعاب طبيعة المكان الذي يحيط به وللحصول على تلك المعطيات نحتاج الى الكم والنوع في نفس الوقت من العديد من الافراد والمؤسسات بعمومها والتي يهمها تطوير التجارة الالكترونية في المنطقة لذلك فهو نشاط جماعي ومنظم

عند الحصول على تلك المعلومات يجب علينا تحليلها و فهمها بواقعية وموضوعية ومن ثم ترتيب سلم أولوياتها لنصل بالنهاية الى المصدر المحرك لتلك المعطيات

لنحاول تطبيق هذة النظرية