At an exclusive Breakfast Club Seminar, held recently by DHL Express, the world’s leading international express service provider - UAE related e-commerce insights from a global survey by PayPal was revealed. Titled ‘World of Opportunities for the UAE Merchants’ the findings depict highly encouraging trends pertaining to cross-border e-commerce amongst digitally-savvy consumers in the Middle East and other regions. Nearly half of the consumers in the UAE – at 49%, prefer to shop cross-border, based on their numerous preferences such as availability, affordability, convenience and security - reveals the survey, among other interesting results.
The global survey, conducted by PayPal, was designed to gain insights into three critical areas – evolving trends in e-commerce, key considerations of consumers who shop locally as well as internationally, and preferred mode of payments during transactions.
Geoff Walsh, UAE Country Manager, DHL Express, said: “Our expertise and reputation is built squarely on our ability to efficiently enable cross-border e-commerce – especially last mile delivery, adhering to international regulations, managing paperwork and leveraging local knowhow. Thanks to the proliferation of easily-accessible digital devices and high-speed data connectivity, an increasing section of shoppers today prefer e-commerce websites. The results of the survey by PayPal are highly encouraging and present a plethora of emerging trends and underlying opportunities in this digitally-savvy part of the world.”
Breakfast Club is a knowledge-sharing platform run by DHL to mentor, interact with, exchange ideas, network, and support the community in which operates in, and comprises of a growing number of stakeholders in the logistics and e-commerce businesses. The event brought together a large number of attendees including Dubai Commercity, The Modist, e-commerce merchants, small enterprises and entrepreneurs of various sizes in the UAE.
Highlights of Middle East and UAE-centric key findings:
- 49% of online shoppers in the UAE shop from both domestic as well as international websites
- The overall percentage of online Middle East shoppers, who prefer domestic and cross border websites, stands at 56%. The figure stands at an equally significant 48% for shoppers who prefer domestic websites.
- A significant proportion of UAE online shoppers – 39% prefer to shop from UAE-based websites
- 44% of UAE online shoppers prefer their smartphones to shop - – a figure higher than that of China
- 59% of Middle East online customers prefer a desktop or laptop for shopping
DHL has developed services that enhance customer experience and support web merchants as
they access new markets. Using advanced market intelligence tools, DHL can quickly identify
shopping sites that receive traffic from international locations, identifying potential sales outside
of the seller’s core market. DHL can compare website engagement metrics and suggest service
enhancement via addition of a cross-border express delivery option.
DHL’s Breakfast Club is an on-going quarterly knowledge sharing platform initiative that discusses topics and issues that impact business landscape in the UAE and the MENA region. The first meeting of Breakfast Club series was held with great success on 5th September in Dubai.
