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Mobiles call the tune for online shopping [National, The (United Arab Emirates)](National, The (United Arab Emirates) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) A growing number of online customers are accessing e-commerce vendors through mobile devices as the number of smartphone-accessible services rises in the region, according to leading retailers. Souq.com's website has 24 million visitors a month and 10 million of those – almost 40 per cent – navigate to it from a mobile device. "Our conversion rate through mobile is double the conversion rate on the web. We don't do anything specific to convert them; people using mobile just seem to convert better," said Mahen Aser, general manager of souq.com. Its mobile app has been downloaded 1.7 million times, he said. A recent report from the research and advisory company BIA/Kelsey showed that 61 per cent of businesses had "excellent leads" from calls started by browsing on a mobile device. The e-commerce boom in the US and beyond has taken its time in taking hold in the UAE and the wider region. It is largely down to geography, with 19 countries in the Mena region, involving complicated customs processes, cumbersome payment systems and a cash-on-delivery (COD) demand that increases costs for the retailer. Mr Aser said: "Seventy-six per cent of our transactions are COD, it is simply part of the ecosystem. We have managed to increase the number of transactions from only 20 per cent on credit cards and prepay to 30 per cent in the UAE [over the past year]." According to the business consultants Nielsen, with 78 per cent, the UAE has easily one of the highest smartphone penetration rates in the Middle East, North Africa and Pakistan region. And 81 per cent of mobile owners aged 16 to 34 now own smartphones, and penetration is also rising steadily among other age groups. Dubizzle, the classified ads site ranked the sixth most popular in the Middle East, is now catering to mobile screens. "The mobile traffic to our website is growing substantially and this is how we see the business going forward," said Barry Judge, the general manager of dubizzle UAE. "We have been focusing on mobile and directing our efforts towards the mobile space. We have noticed an increase in the mobile traffic against desktop users: dubizzle Mena reached 34 per cent mobile traffic in 2014, compared to 24 per cent in the same period last year. "We are releasing an improved version of our mobile app this month to cater to and increase the mobile traffic." The UAE government's desire to develop electronic portals for its services has also spurred the trend. "Since the start of 2014 business has jumped 50 per cent with many customers wanting to enhance their mobile offering," said Mohammed Ilyas, chief technical officer with the web and mobile designer DeviceBee. "It is a function of the government's push into the smart government sphere." Centrepoint, home of Splash, ShoeMart, Babyshop and Lifestyle is also developing platforms to meet demand for mobile retailing. Shyam Sunder, deputy general manager of marketing for Centrepoint said: "We are in the process of developing a new mobile-optimised site that will be responsive to the device that consumers are browsing on. "Even physical shops know that getting marketing messages to their consumer on the go is key to driving sales." About 65 per cent of all traffic on its website now comes through a mobile device, Mr Sunder said. [email protected] (c) 2014 s Abu Dhabi Media Company, All rights reserved. Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. (Syndigate.info). |