No other market is so a transient and vibrant society like Dubai. Over 200 nations live in a single spot and speak in majority 7 languages. You can imagine that cultural background and social behavior has a large variety. Reaching the right audience for your products and services which you might want to address your offers can be challenging for digital marketing.

Emirates which are the local citizens are only 20% of the population but high potential consumers. It goes far beyond understanding technology or finding the right budget to start your e-commerce marketplace or digital marketing campaign. Listening to your audience and knowing their behavior is key to success but seems to be hard also for the big once. 

Since the initiatives of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum all point towards digitalization and being modern country and marketplace in the middle east,  the UAE is booming when it comes to e-commerce and adopting new technologies like A.I., A.R., and Blockchain. It is expected that digital solutions will be a major driver in the UAE economy and contributing to the GDP great.

The last 5 years have been more than a rollercoaster ride for the development of UAE e-commerce with nearly 1000 e-commerce marketplaces rising.

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Global Media Insights have been writing on their blog all details about e-Commerce Market Trends and illustrated the facts all together into an infographic. The article looks depth into the e-commerce market of UAE and various other e-commerce business aspects like e-commerce website builder, most popular e-commerce websites in the UAE, and most trending products purchased online.

The U.A.E. market growth development rosed from 2.5 billion to 10 billion from 2014 to 2018. Looking into some insides we can see that one of the most popular platforms used is Woo Commerce which is used by +390 domains and keeps a market share of 39%. Then we can see Magento which might be a surprise. Worldwide Spotify is holding spot number 2 as the most commonly used e-commerce platform, but it seems not in the UAE.

Let’s have a quick look at the list of most popular e-commerce websites ranked by the volume of traffic measured by Alexa.

1. SOUQ.COM
2. AWOK.COM
3. WADI.COM
4. NAMSHI.COM
5. LANDMARKSHOPS.COM
6. DESERTCART.AE
7. SHARAFDG.COM

All these online shops offer a variety of products and the most popular by the users bought is software, electronics, clothing, and fashion accessories. It’s clear where people spend their money online. However, we saw minor adoption compared to the international side when it comes to user experience, adopting new technologies, and new ways of targeting.

How much the platforms really earn money or if they are used only for users to research products and compare prices is written on a different paper. Modern solutions in e-commerce can bridge the gap between the online experience and in-shop experience.

We in Skillz Middle East see a great movement in intelligent solutions towards addressing consumers in a more pro-active way which is assisted with smart digital marketing campaigns.

New trends in e-commerce will proof us over the next 5 years if their adoption was so successful as the initial wave of bringing great e-commerce sites up. Share your thoughts in our commenting section and read the full infographic, “e-Commerce Market Trends in the UAE”, below.