Customers in the Middle East are Willing to Wait

Consumers in the Middle East love to shop, and shoppers in countries such as Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and Egypt have shown a penchant for ecommerce shopping.

But the shoppers’ demand for fast delivery depends on where they are making a purchase, said Iyad Kamal, COO of global logistics and transportation solutions provider Aramex during an interview at eTail West in Palm Desert, CA on Tuesday, Feb. 23.

Kamal said Aramex offers up to 3-hour delivery in cities they operate in, such as Dubai, for products purchased online from local ecommerce merchants. But the Middle East consumer is also pretty cost-conscious: Kamal says Aramex finds that customers are willing to wait 3 or 4 more days to get a better shipping rate.

“There is more demand for deferred product into the region,” Kamal said. “Customers are happy with a 3 or 4 day transit time out of the U.S. because U.S. ecommerce sites offer variety, availability of products that don’t exist in the region, and it’s cost-effective. I think that will remain for some time, until you have local ecommerce players in the region that can offer similar products and variety as U.S. etailers. But that is going to take some time, of course.”

A cross-border ecommerce expert, Kamal will speak at Multichannel Merchant’s Growing Global 2016 conference, which will be held April 13-14 at the Duke Energy Convention Center in Cincinnati.

Tim Parry is Multichannel Merchant’s Managing Editor, and the lead programmer for Growing Global.

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