Report on Review of Souq.com

Introduction of Souq.com

Souq.com was established in 2005 in the Middle East which, at that time, was not an ideal country to startup any e-commerce business. However, the Middle East has offered remarkable potential along with a total  population, in which half of the population were youth less than 25 years old. The Middle East region was greatly fragmented, comprising of various countries where each of them has its own customs and laws, payment and logistics systems. That time, there was a low rate of personal computer and broadband access in this region.

However, Souq has turned out to become the biggest e-commerce business in the Middle East ever since it was launched for the public. These days, this e-commerce company has been operating in seven different countries in lieu of above than  population. Souq has also employed more than , consisting of digital marketers, software engineers, call-center representatives, and also delivery staff (Mouchawar, 2017).

Souq was actually launched as an auction website aligned with eBay, and later on, the company branch out into real estate and automobile categorized. The e-commerce business was growing speedily, and at the end of 2009, Souq has recorded auction transactions which valued for above than  UAE dirhams per month. Thus, the e-commerce company has kept on expanding its business ranges with launching its first mobile application in 2012 and has gained more than  of its business transactions through this application. In 2010, Souq has decided to switch its platform into B2C with the perspective of Amazon which hits in the United States.

This e-commerce business performed by Souq has been running smoothly with the fact that there are no issues regarding payment method in the UAE. In fact, credit cards were broadly available in the region in which the customers have been using credit cards for their online shopping. In the context of delivery service which was still evolving in the region, Souq has handled it with launching its own Q Express to reach about  of its customers.

The success of Souq has extended along with a decision made by Amazon to acquire Souq in March 2017. The main reason for this decision has appeared to be the fact that Souq possesses installed base, integrated payment, as well as delivery operations, which enable both Amazon and Souq to expand e-commerce business in the Middle East region as a collaboration. In fact, Amazon even also shares the values and the focus of Souq which placed on technology, innovation, and customers. In addition to this, the Middle East is still offering an amazing e-commerce potential, even though Souq which has collaborated with Amazon was recently operating its business in only a few areas. As a result, online sales of Souq in its existing markets have accounted for about  of retail sales associated with  in the United States, about  in the European countries, and more than  in China (Mouchawar, 2017).

Source: https://ecommercedb.com/en/store/souq.com

The figure above has presented how Souq nowadays has known as the company with the biggest amount of e-commerce net sales in the United Arab Emirates with its global net sales accounted for $596,2 million in 2018 (Ecommercedb.com, 2018). According to the product range, Souq is an all-round online store, by offering products in various categories. Thus, Souq has presented a remarkable business performance one in the scope of the Middle East e-commerce business.