How to revolutionize the adoption of E-commerce in the Middle East

Ideally one would think that easy access to internet and ready availability of digital payment methods like credit cards and mobile wallets should be a perfect recipe for rapid adoption of E-commerce. But unfortunately, despite these favorable factors the online transactions in the Middle East (or the MENA/Gulf region, as it is popularly called) are not yet as widespread as compared to some other parts of the world — both high income and low income countries.

While the above factors are great precursors to adoption of online commerce, they are definitely not the pre-requisites and even more importantly not the only factor that affect the growth of e-commerce in any geography. Had it been so, then countries like India — with its limited internet user base and relatively poor speeds and abysmal penetration of credit cards would not have been at the forefront of the digital commerce revolution.

There are ways around the credit cards (Pay on Delivery options) and around the low internet speeds (lite webpages that can load despite low speeds) and even low RAM devices (lite apps and m-sites enablement) but solving the cultural issues that prohibit the acceptance of new age commerce is more difficult than solving the technical issues.

Every Product Manager is taught to be sensitive to user’s demographic and cultural profile in order to understand his pain points and his needs better so that he/she can think of a solution that will have greater user acceptance. In my opinion, Middle East is a market which is unlike any other and unless we understand what drives people to physical commerce (brick and mortar stores or malls) in this region we can not create a digital experience for them that can lead them to substitute the shopping from the physical stores with that from the online stores.

In many countries, e-commerce stores serve a very basic need of providing a quick and easy way of purchasing goods without the need of frustrating experience of wasting tons of time in traffic and parking on the way to the mall. This is typically not the case in the Middle East. Here on the contrary, a trip to the mall is looked upon as a favorite leisure activity given that there aren’t very many alternatives in a desert environment. The malls are grand and entertainment is blended well into the shopping experience. Therefore, if the online stores need to replace the physical stores they need to focus on providing the entertainment value to the online shopping experience, in addition to the convenience, in order to trump the malls.

There are multiple ways of doing this some of which we are going to explore in detail as we progress through this article. But before that, I am going to talk about the other issue that needs more urgency and that is the trust in e-commerce related to quality of goods and timely delivery. While cheaper prices are of course a great pull always but people tend to value the convenience offered when they can rely upon the quality without any inspection or cursory inspection and the fact that they will get rapid delivery after the order has been placed. The trust that the quality and delivery times would be exactly as promised, takes time to build, but it can be broken with a single instance. This all is all the more important when the customer acquisition costs are high and getting higher by the day with increased competition.

So, let’s talk about how to build more trust into e-commerce and offer value to the user which is akin to interacting with the physical good and real people in physical stores.

1. Reviews and Ratings — User generated content for reviews and ratings by verified buyers is probably the best way to build trust. This builds confidence with the buyers and the transparency also forces the sellers to mind their quality. Thus it is a win win. I am quite shocked to see why Noon (which is a leading e-commerce app in the region) choses to obscure the Reviews and Ratings on its product description pages. Even when one clicks on “Reviews and Ratings” tab they get a default view of “Expert Reviews” and not “Customer Reviews”. Who are these experts and why their views have a priority over those who bought this item? And why can’t the reviews be in the scroll downs of the product pages and be hidden under a tab?
   While Noon is one of the most aesthetically designed e-commerce apps that I have seen but it seems like utility is taken for a toss. Isn’t a good design as much about aesthetic beauty as easy and intuitive satisfaction of the user need?

2. Using 360 degree videos in addition to images and adding AR/VR experiences — 360 degree product videos give the user a chance to experience the product in 3D from all angles. This gives a feeling of tangibility which is a cornerstone of a great shopping experience. While words and images give a lot of information, in case of assisting with making a high emotion or high ticket size purchase decision, this would have a huge impact on user experience. In addition to this, many apparel retailers are making use of AR/VR APIs to show a costume on different body shapes to let users assess whether a particular item fit them well/go well with their body type. Some are going a step further and even allowing the users to upload their images and experience a virtual try-on experience. This can be extended to the use case of an online furniture retailer or home-furnishing store, each of which can allow their users’ to see how a sofa set would look like with their kind of interiors or alternately enable them to choose different interiors to go with their choice of sofa set.
An AR company, Scapic, helps its e-commerce clients with adding these functionalities to create great virtual experiences for their users.

3. Video led E-commerce — I have long been a strong advocate of video first approach to e-commerce and I am sure that with the advent of 5G, video led e-commerce is going to be mainstream. Instagram and TikTok are laready experimenting with powering e-commerce through influencer led videos. And when I say that I don’t mean only the shout-outs influencers do for the paid marketing campaigns by the brands but more importantly the technology that enables shoppers to “shop-the-look” i.e. click and buy whatever items they like in the video by pointing on the video in real time! With decreasing attention spans and increasing hold of entertainment, videos are going to drive the future of online transactions and influencers are going to be at the center of that revolution. The e-commerce companies need to put in place a well thought of and cost effective strategy of generating short form (less than a minute long) entertaining yet relevant video content to drive engagement and push sales. I have done some experiments in this space at Snapdeal and the results were phenomenal — a lift in visit/visitor by 2.1% and lift in conversion by 5.3%. People return to the platform with greater frequency for the entertainment value and thus there is a chance of pushing up the transaction frequency as well as the ticket size. The trust with real people — people that you know about and relate to — is exponentially higher. This also introduces the gamification (game like fun and engagement) and social angle into the shopping experience.

All of this is of course useful in building trust only when the underlying product quality, seller ratings, delivery logistics, customer support and smooth returns are already in place and thus this is no substitute to buildinga great supply chain. It’s just a frontend addendum to build the confidence of the customers landing on the platform organically or via paid marketing campaigns so that their stickiness improves.

Now that I have talked about building trust, let me tackle the issue of building the engagement and entertainment value via introducing behavioral elements like adding excitement, exploiting FOMO etc. in shopping and using social nudging to incite intended shopping behavior.

1. Game Center — As discussed earlier, entertainment is what drives the people to the mall. So, what stops us from adding entertainment to a shopping platform?
   a. Adding simplistic games like Fruit Ninja etc. are a good way of giving users a reason to come back to your platform even when they are not explicitly looking to shop. The studies show that more time they spend on the platform, greater are their chances of end up buying something! Plus, you can easily nudge them to shop by awarding virtual currency against their gaming pursuits which can then be used for discounts (with restrictions) when they shop! Such games are easily available with 3rd party vendor who create games and offer integrations via APIs.
   b. Adding skill based games like quizzes and guess-the-price-for-this-product can be extremely good way of running promotions for a certain category of goods or select brands. In most such cases, the brands sponsor the discounts/rewards and thus the platform is relieved of bearing the financial burden of these contests and yet achieving higher sales!
   c. Adding luck based games like spin-the-wheel can be a great way to dispense discount coupons. People tend to get hooked to the surprise element and also tend to feel that such discounts are “earned” and thus have a greater propensity of using them for shopping. One such experiment at Snapdeal has yielded a sustained increment of about 6% in conversion.
2. Movie Center — Who doesn’t like a good movie!? This is exactly the reason behind Amazon’s Prime Videos. But I am in no way suggesting an upfront investment in movie/TV show production like Amazon, there are a lot of OTT providers which provide tons of amazing content curated from different production houses for a very cheap per user subscription. It is easy to integrate their content onto your app via APIs. This can also be a place to host live entertainment shows like dance or comedy performances or online music concerts. There are a number of ways to monetize this engagement,
   a. Clubbing this as a value proposition along with free deliveries into your monthly/annual subscription plan, much like what Amazon does
   b. Offering this as “exclusive” service to your power shoppers, helping build loyalty and push ticket sizes
   c. Offering it is a paid or freemium service for all your users and thus serve as additional revenue stream with free version bringing in ad revenue and also serving as a channel to push your own goods to drive transactions
   d. Raising revenue through tickets for special live concerts and star performances
3. Social Nudging — Booking.com does it extremely well. When a user lands on a particular property he is interested in, Booking starts to show the following nudges on the page
   a. X number of people are viewing this product right now
   b. Y number of people booked this property in last 24 hours
   c. Only 5 rooms/units left in this property
   d. Only 15 minutes left at this price
   This is called social proofing and exploits the fact that humans tend to behave the way they see others behaving and their perception of quality and the need of anything is strongly correlated to the perception of the others. The above nudges communicate the high quality of the product (rooms in this case) and the indicate scarcity, pushing up the perceived value and thus psychologically pushing the buyer to make the decision and make that decision fast!
   This also gives more information points to the user than just plain-vanilla reviews and ratings.
4. Shopping Assistant — This is a very exciting application of AI into e-commerce. “Shopping Assistant” bots who can indulge you in small talks, guide you though the interface and also give (ML based) product suggestions have a potential to make the lonely exercise of online shopping much more enjoyable — much like the guardian angles or the virtual buddies do in games. They can congratulate you for “making that awesome choice for the dress”, can ask you what price range and features you are looking in your phone and present right set of handsets to choose from!
   The best part about chatbots are that customizable solutions are available from 3rd party vendors with easy integration, thus saving the effort of internal development. The fun goes up 10X if the bot can speak as well. This reduces the cognitive load on the shopper and also makes the bot more human-like!
5. Building great search and discovery — At the end, the shopping experience of your users is going to be determined by the fact whether they are able to easily find the exact products they are looking for or not.
   I recently searched for “best camera phones” on Noon. Unfortunately, let alone understanding the composite phrase, the search results neither showed cameras, nor phones! All I got was connector cables! Try that (if they haven’t already fixed it after I sent them a communication about it)! Such broken search experience often erodes the buyers’ confidence in the portal’s supply of goods. Unaware of the technicalities around the search function, he assumes that his target product is not available on the platform. And in case, this happens on a few different occasions he may even stop trying. Thus providing a great search experience is at the core of product for an e-commerce platform.
   The other great function is the “suggested products”. This not only makes for an easier shopping experience for the user, it also helps the portal push up the cart value and the LTV of the user. And yet, getting it right is easier said than done!
   From my experience, I have found an easier way (while still continuing to improve search and suggestions) to get around this problem — curate the category-wise top products. And to go a step further, choose a handful of top products algorithmically from among the top selling products and club them into a deals section with good promotional prices. This way your users can find the top quality, best selling products at the best available price with ease — solving both the user problem and the business problem in one shot!

I am sure that with growing demand and also more talent pouring into the fast growing e-commerce companies in the region, they will soon find ways to fix the basic product issues and build great user experiences over the top of it! And with that in place, a new e-commerce boom will usher into the region! The metaphorical “digital oil” powering the new economy.
he investments into the sector are already growing each year and I am quite optimistic on the growth potential with close to 150 million people living in the region and most having good purchasing power and access to great internet and devices.
So, buckle up for the boom of internet economy in MENA. Amen!