Atypical Player
Mena Commerce is a very atypical e-commerce player in the Gulf and Middle Eastern region. It has been described as being “The Google of Retail” because of its flagship-shopping engine: ShopShopMe.com. Users can tell the website which product they are looking for and the search engine then looks across all online and offline stores.
By doing this, MENA Commerce offers retailers a change to increase their visibility while increasing the options for the consumer. And it doesn’t stop there.
ShopShopMe goes Mobile
In a press release, MENA Commerce stated that it will soon release a mobile version of its search engine. Giving consumers the possibilities to use text and images to look up products.
The Company’s Founder Moustafa Mahmoud told in a statement: “When a shopper sees a product they like on shelf, all they need to do is point their mobile phone’s camera at it and the application will automatically identify the product, and show all the other retailers selling the same product along with their prices.”
Arzan Venture Capital
For Kuwait-based Venture Capital firm Arzan Venture Capital, investing in MENA Commerce doesn’t fit in their normal investment strategy. The company told the press “MENA Commerce is an outlier among other seed stage start-ups in the MENA region”.
Senior Investment Manager Ahmad Takatkah added “MENA Commerce is basically an e-commerce infrastructure start-up. It’s rarely to find a true technology start-up that is creating new patentable technology in our region. The team is creating innovative technology utilizing big data tools to provide consumers as well as online stores with a better mobile experience”.
Source: Gulf Retail News