JEDDAH, 18 January 2008 — Little awareness of e-commerce, information technology and the way credit cards work is hindering the development of local online and e-commerce services offered to the Saudi Internet community.
Some businessmen and shop owners are still hesitant about sharing their business information with Soft-Lynix, a Jeddah-based IT company specialized in e-marketing, which is currently compiling information for the first online shops directory that is still under development: www.jeddaheshop.com.
“After studying the growth of e-commerce in comparison to the local cyber culture and conducting market research and analysis, we realized that customers here are not ready yet to purchase their local products online,” said Shakeel Siddiqui, general manager of Soft-Lynix.
“Therefore, we developed Jeddah eShop as an online city outlet information resource for consumers, mainly expatriates either residing or visiting Jeddah, to find shops in town,” said Siddiqui.
Michael K., a 43-year-old Austrian who lives and works in Riyadh, visits Jeddah regularly. He says it has always been a hassle for him to call the Saudi Phone Directory to get information about shops in Jeddah.
“When I dial 905 and press 2 for English, I end up talking to an Arabic speaking operator. After struggling to get phone numbers of shops in Jeddah, I discover that they’re either wrong or suspended...I hope that Jeddah eShop makes my life easier,” said Michael.
President of Soft-Lynix Mazen Kattan, 30, and Siddiqui collect information door-to-door for their shopping portal. According to Kattan, people were generally cooperative in sharing their business details, include company profiles, URLs, phone and fax numbers, brand logos, picture of products and addresses.
“However, some feel that Jeddah eShop isn’t going to succeed and advised us to print a promotional magazine instead...We expected more enthusiasm and cooperation since we’re offering people free publicity,” said Kattan.
Soft-Lynix derived the idea of creating Jeddah eShop from Microsoft’s www.eshop.com that serves as “a mall without walls” where everything is put in one place to compare products and prices. According to the Internet World Stats, between 2000 and 2007 Internet use grew 2,250 percent in Saudi Arabia, rising up from 200,000 to 4.7 million Internet users.
However, unable to provide an easy and secure way for customers to purchase products online, because of the complicated procedures of banks and unsolved credit card problems, Kattan decided to approach businesses and collect their information to create a database.
According to Farah Al-Serafi, corporate relationship officer at the Banque Saudi Fransi, e-commerce is something new to the Kingdom and will take time to improve. “There are bank procedures that companies have to abide by. And going through these procedures and paperwork is mainly for security reasons,” said Al-Serafi.
Rania Ahmed, a 25-year-old resident of Jeddah, said it is about time that a handy informative portal about Jeddah is created. “It’s a great initiative especially that the webpage is categorized according to main streets in Jeddah,” said Rania. “If Jeddah eShop builds a comprehensive online directory with a more catchy and advanced website design than the current one, it will do so many people a huge favor.”
Italian Emanuele Mari, the 46-year-old managing director of a company in Dammam, said the idea is good, but it is necessary for Jeddah eShop to have more alerts to attract people. “The database is well planned, but it’s important to find a way to capture people’s curiosity. ...They also need to plan for developing the website for Riyadh and Dammam areas.”
Siddiqui said that there are plans to create a similar portal for Dubai and Beirut but none for other Saudi cities. He also noted that Soft-Lynix has signed a contract with Google to have Jeddah eShop as a sponsored link on the search web page soon.
