A radical solution to the region's payment challenges, from serial e-commerce entrepreneur Moustafa Mahmoud

At this point, it wouldn’t come as a surprise to learn that Moustafa Mahmoud eats, drinks, and sleeps e-commerce, in addition to having lived it day in and day out since 2005. Having studied how information security applies to the e-commerce industry in graduate school at the University of California, Mahmoud became convinced of its potential for the region, and moved to Dubai to put what he’d learned to work.

Four e-commerce startups later (including ShuGeek, which Wamda recently profiled, and jewelry e-commerce site Xeswar), he launched yet another venture in March called MENA Commerce. But this time, the product he’s selling to the UAE entrepreneur community is the e-commerce know-how he and his team of eight have accumulated in their various experiences in the industry.

I spoke with Mahmoud earlier this week from his office in Dubai about some tips for e-commerce entrepreneurs in the Emirates and the region. He had advice that’s basically universally applicable – such as embracing failure, and communicating promiscuously among your entrepreneur community – but one tip really stood out as something even Wamda doesn’t hear often.

The way to surmount the UAE’s – and the region’s – payment challenges, says Mahmoud, is for merchants to dump cash-on-delivery, regardless of what’s convenient for customers.

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A radical solution to the region’s payment challenges, from serial e-commerce entrepreneur Moustafa Mahmoud