Saudi Women – a new IT hub?



(an edited version of this post was written for Nabbesh.com)
 

ALWANE’s study earlier this year in conjunction with Harvey Nichols, KPMG and Glowork disovered what Saudi women want from work opportunities in the retail industry and what’s really holding them back.  

 

 

Results demonstrated that 42% accept the idea of women working in the retail sector, while 58% dismissed the idea completely.

 

The following graph shows their preferred choice of work environment

 

 

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Source: blog.nabbesh.com

So long and thanks for all the fish



This post should really be titled “Your daily dose of WTF” because that would be the best description. 
 

The Somali Pirate Crisis seems to have been going on forever, so i’m sure you were all as relieved as I was when the headline “Somali pirates who hjacked ship did not mean any harm” appeared, even though “they had rocket propelled grenades with them” 

Phew. No harm done there….

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Retailers Refuse to admit Reality

SOPA was like a flashback to 2003.  Once again content publishers were “infuriated” by illegal file sharing and piracy, in much the same way the music industry was before Steve Jobs came along and gave them a wonderful solution that married creativity and technology so everyone could win.  This week’s announcement that Middle East retailers who were planning to open online stores have changed their minds prompted me to think about how that gap is being filled by equally innovative upstarts, and will probably prevent any likelihood of the big box retailers gaining their customers back.

Before the end of 2011, there was many an optimistic article claiming that 2012 would see the opening of more online stores driven by Lulu hypermarket and Ikea.  All of a sudden, they have changed their minds citing the fact that online shopping isn’t popular enough.  You would have thought that before going to the press in June 2011 stating their optimism, they would have mapped out the popularity.  Plus, we just had Christmas, usually a huge driving factor for online sales.  Sales for the site EmiratesAvenue.com had risen 50 per cent in the month leading up to Christmas Day 2011 compared with the same period last year.  Julian Pascual said, “In the few weeks before [Christmas], we sold over half a million dirhams of goods.”

Personally I don’t buy the retailers’ argument .  In fact Euromonitor states:  “Despite the size of the e-commerce market, it is expected to grow dramatically over the next four years, with spending online to hit US$2.09 billion (Dh7.67bn) by 2016, more than double the $1.01bn spent last year”.  But then it isn’t the first time research has been completely dismissed, as last week’s spat between advertising execs and Ipsos and PARC demonstrated

If smaller outfits such as JadoPado / Nahel / Souq / Markavip / Sukar / Mumzworld / Alshop / Emirates Avenue can do it, it seems absurd that the larger retailers can’t, especially considering they already have the logistics and infrastructure set up, including warehousing.   But; like Sony’s failure to create an end to end solution for music a decade ago, even with the key ingredients of recording label, device and electronic expertise; this is probably just Big Business Syndrome.  The inability to reach consensus, bureaucratic fumbling and failure to focus on the end consumer is stifling innovation.  

One of the main problems in the mentality is this: “let’s get the website running first and get an audience” (GM of Ikea UAE) rather than “we already have a database of customers, let’s think about how technology can make their lives easier”.  I particularly like this interview with Mumzworld founder Mona Ataya as an example of how to think right.

Should the big retailers eventually decide to launch their online shops, they should be in an advantageous position to leverage their existing marketing and CRM abilities to drive a lot of traffic to their online stores efficiently.  They already have brand names that people are aware of.  They already have communication channels set up with customers. In some cases they may even have a loyalty programme.

How would they go about doing it?  Starting with a good SEM / SEO strategy, communications that span 3 screens (tv / mobile / web) and a social presence to take care of customer service and social shopping including the occasional deal or discount.   Citruss TV – the QVC of the arab world has a great formula.  It has a TV channel, a great facebook page with over 35,000 fans, a website you can buy the goods from, promoted tweets and a call center.

For the large conglomerates, MAF Group, Emke Group, Landmark Group,  it’s a brilliant way to capture great data which could lead to cross selling opportunities from other divisions within the group. Clearly if you’ve got a woman buying stuff from Babyshop online, she might be persuaded to buy a 7 seater minivan to transport her and her family.  How do you get to this stage? Not without capturing and analyzing all that data, and www.npario.com have a great solution that gives you powerful analytics in a easy to read and easy to manipulate format.

Big Retail need not worry, because there is an all in one E-commerce platform based on SaaS called www.martjack.com which is already being implemented here by fashion startups, airlines, electronics chains and more. The monthly license fee starts as low as $200/month.  I’ve seen this product in action and it works. Best of all, it hardly takes anytime to set up and the features are flexible, giving you more time to focus on servicing your customers.


By focusing on where the market is now, rather than building for the future, retailers are literally starving themselves of future customers.  Today’s startups are swiftly transforming into tomorrow’s big business, and by that time they will have had years of experience iterating and finding a solution that works.  I hope they get a move on.

 


Why I won’t shop at electronics stores again

Today I went into the mall to buy an HDMI cable. First I went into E Max and asked an assistant to help me, he waved me further down the shop so I had to ask again. They only had one brand of HDMI cable which I’d never heard of and was 45 Dhs. It was a fairly large store but only had one cashier, which is bizarre considering that consumer electronics is one of the fastest growing industries in this region.  I also asked for some headphones, there were only 3 or 4, barely any brands I knew. I waited for too long, left the item and crossed over to the adjacent store, Jacky’s Electronics

Jackys Electronics UAE

This time I found more helpful staff, although when I chose my Panasonic HDMI cable, I asked for some info.  Why does it say “ethernet compatible” I said, what else can I do with it?  It took 3 different assistants to try and help because no one knew.  Then I asked for some headphones, the man said “we just have these here” gesturing to the closest stand.  None of these were what I wanted.  My assistant offered to “print out the invoice” whilst I was waiting.  Wow, I thought, great service, he returned with a post it note with a 3 digit number on it.  When I made my way to the singular cashier, I saw a whole row of Beats by Dre headphones. Why, I thought, had I not been shown these before?  At 808 Dhs ($220) I wasn’t going to buy a pair. I finally got to check out and off I went. 

Beats by Dre Headphones

As I went home I checked the price for the headphones online, which was of course cheaper. I also got to read some reviews which were very telling.  Many of the reviews spoke about the terrible quality of the casing, which snaps in two after a short period of time.  Something I’m not going to fork out $220 for.

Here’s my overall issue.  If you’re going to force me to come to your brick and mortar store, then please make sure your sales assistants can interact with me in english.  I could barely understand anything anyone was saying.  The service was apathetic in E Max and disinformed in Jackys.  I go to the store to find experts in particular products to encourage me to make a sale.  Since I have access to the internet, I can easily find all the information I want and compare prices and interact with other consumers who have already bought the product.  Why are retailers here lagging in the basics?  Why do I feel that I as the consumer am getting screwed? They ship vast quantities of products in, use the cheapest possible labour to sell it, and make a hefty profit.

It would be great if they could keep me as a consumer and find out what my requests are and then if they don’t have the stock, offer to order it in and deliver it to me.  I would pay a premium for this.  If Jacky’s can’t offer me Sennheiser earphones, either in store or by ordering with their vast retailer network, then who can? 

Sennheiser Headphones

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