According to experts, e-commerce is the fastest growing sector in the Gulf. For the UAE in particular, they expect its value to reach $10 billion USD by 2018. For the time being though, according to a report by online payment gateway Payfort, e-commerce in the UAE is currently valued at $2.5 billion USD, with more than 3.6 million online shoppers, 60% of whom are located in Dubai.
As part of this move to get more people shopping online, Jordanian entrepreneur Haneen Dabain came up with Pricena. Launched in 2013 in the UAE, the price comparison site, which redirects shoppers to other online stores, started with just 10 stores and has now expanded to 40 stores in the UAE and most recently 10 in Egypt. With 180,000 products and more than 500 categories, it is drawing 180,000 visitors each month.
“Pricena’s algorithm is similar to the one Google uses to also go into websites and compare prices,” explains Dabain. The website operates quasi-automatically, with minimal human intervention: data entry operators upload basic information about stores once and Pricena automatically updates prices of subscribed stores every 24 hours. The team is also working on launching a Pricena mobile app for both iOS and Android by September.
Dabain sees Pricena serving both customer and store in equal measure. “We work towards […] saving time, effort, and money for the former, and providing the latter with an opportunity to market its brand, to be present in a competitive environment.” Dabain believes that when consumers reach the point of comparing prices it means they have already made up their mind about buying the product – Dabain says that this is “the key behind a 6% conversion rate compared to 1% for Google Adwords.”
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Can adapted Google algorithm get MENA customers to shop online?
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