Starting Your Online e-Commerce Business in Saudi Arabia 10

E-commerce has seen a significant global rise in popularity and market share after global lockdowns across the globe during the COVID-19 pandemic, which saw a shift in the retail business landscape as well as changes in consumer purchasing habits and trends.

The world realized that you can create a successful business from the comfort of your own home thanks to e-commerce. This article details everything you need to consider when starting your dream online business in Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia is currently looking to diversify its economy and is investing strategically in e-commerce.

Here are the top 10 questions to consider before starting your online business in KSA:

1. Do I need a registered company to sell online?

Registration of an e-commerce store in KSA can be a challenging task due to strict business laws. However, the Saudi government introduced a new updated e-commerce Law in 2019 that details all the rules you must follow as an e-commerce business operating in KSA.

This law was written to encourage local and foreign ecommerce businesses to invest in KSA which also aligns with the new globalized business model the Saudi government is trying to implement. You can simply contact the Ministry of Commerce in KSA to register your business and they will guide you through the process.

When talking about small to medium business initiatives we also need to mention Monsha’at, one of the pillars of entrepreneurship in Saudi Arabia. Monsha’at works to prepare, implement, and support programs and projects to spread the culture and thought of self-employment and the spirit of entrepreneurship, initiative, and innovation, diversify sources of financial support for enterprises, and stimulate venture capital sector initiatives.

Registration with Monsha’at can also boost your online business immensely in your early stages and prepare you for all the business challenges you’re going to face in Saudi Arabia.

Familiarize yourself with the registration of your e-commerce business with Tajjirbaba here.

2. What are the popular payment options?

The popular payment options in KSA  include secure debit card payments (like prepaid card systems) and cash-on-delivery (COD). As an online business, you should provide every option for your customers and let them choose at their convenience. In 2020 for example, card payments in online transactions in KSA reached 35%, which shows the decreasing dependence on cash-on-delivery (COD) by Saudi citizens.

One of the most important payment solutions in Saudi Arabia is Mada which is one of the most advanced global technical payment systems. It connects all automated teller machines (ATMs) and point-of-sale (POS) terminals offered by local banks throughout the country to a central payment switch that in turn re-routes the financial transactions between a merchant’s bank and the card issuer bank, so keeps Mada in mind when choosing your preferred payment gateway on your online store.

Furthermore, you should integrate online payment solutions that cater to both needs and automate currency exchange transactions for local, regional, and international transactions. For example, ecomz allows store owners to define a payment gateway per region, this helps merchants choose the best and most popular payment gateway for each customer segment which customers appreciate and feel more comfortable with.

The popular payment gateways in KSA are:

• PayTabs (accepts Mada)
• Payfort (accepts Mada)
• Hyperpay
• 2Checkout
• PayPal
• Stripe
• Cybersource

 

Activating payment gateway solutions can be tricky, read more and get to know which one suits your online business best here.

 

3. What are the best shipping providers?

Shipping and delivery of your products can make or break the shopping experience for your customers. There are several factors you should consider when integrating your shipping provider into your online store.

In Saudi Arabia specifically, it’s very important to choose your shipping provider based on the shipping zones they cater to, whether they ship to the main cities (Riyadh, Jeddah) or the outside cities (Al-Dammam, Al-Khobar). The cost of shipping may vary drastically so you need to set multiple shipping rates to the different regions.

Even more, you can also decide to integrate with different shipping providers that are specialized in delivering to specific regions, optimizing the shopping experience for all Saudi citizens in all KSA in the process.

Luckily, with ecomz, you can divide your shipping zones and integrate with different providers to sell in multiple regions, which helps you satisfy customers from different countries and cultures. Moreover, ecomz allows you to both pack and ship orders within the platform therefore you don’t need to copy and paste your order data from one system to another and integrate cash-on-delivery (COD) on any order you have, helping you automate the procedure and scale your shipping operations.

The most popular shipping solution providers in KSA are:

International shippers:

• Aramex
• DHL

 

Local shippers:

• Naqel Express
• Fetchr
• Aramex

To learn more about creating orders with your shipping provider on your online store check our article here.

4. What skills do I need? Should I hire an expert?

Building your online store from scratch is very challenging. You should have experience in website setup, design, coding, and performance. Your website needs to have a friendly user interface and a smooth user experience to optimize the shopping experience and make sure that your customers don’t face problems or delays on your website.

Simultaneously, you should also be focusing on growing your business and creating promotions and campaigns to get traffic to your website.

You can create your website on your own or have a team of experts build it for you. If you decide to do your website on your own, ecomz offers a do-it-yourself (DIY) plan where you are responsible for the design of the website, adding products, SEO, and payment/shipment integrations. Make sure to benefit from all the free guides, FAQs, and blogs available online, they can offer unique insights you might not know about website creation.

At ecomz, we also offer a do-it-for-you plan (DIFY) where we set up your store, content, design, store management, marketing, SEO, payment setup and shipping configuration. This way you can handle the financial and marketing aspects of your business while we optimize every little detail about your online store and customer experience.

If you want to know more, book a call with our experts and see how we can help you launch your e-commerce business.

5. Is it safe?

There are many security challenges you will face in your online business. You need to make sure that all of your transactions and orders are secure, immune to fraud, and that all your customer data like names and credit card info are private.

The safety of your e-commerce store is our top priority, that’s why we supply you with an SSL certificate, 24/7 monitoring, encrypted data, and a 24/7 status updates page.

In addition to that, we tokenize all credit card payments during transactions safely in a vault and have implemented a fraud analysis system that detects and flags any suspicious transactions on your website.

Check out how you can request an SSL certificate directly here.

6. How much will it cost?

How much you pay for your online store depends on whether you want to create your website on a self-hosted platform or a hosted platform like ecomz.

If you go for the first option and don’t have website design skills or experience you need to hire specialists to design your layout and themes, manage the store, fix bugs, work on product SEO, market products, and operate customer service.

Using a hosted platform is the more popular option these days, it allows you to save tons of money and gives you way more time to work on the growth of your online business. Ecomz for example offers you up to 20+ responsive themes, 24/7 support, and sales and marketing boosters for the monthly fee of 24$ for the startup plan.

Your cost also depends on the customizations and integrations you choose to start with on your website. You can stick with the 24$ per month for the startup plan or pay more by adding customizations like abandoned cart recovery or questions and reviews.

Check out all our plans and prices here.

7. Should I sell in Saudi Riyal or another currency?

It is a no-brainer that you need to sell in the Saudi Riyal in the KSA because it is very important to encourage your local currency in your own country. However, if you are selling outside of KSA, you need to make sure that you offer the most attractive and culturally relatable currency in the region you are selling in.

Regionally, there are lots of currencies to consider, you have the AED in the UAE, the Dinar in Kuwait, the Qatari Riyal, the Lira in Lebanon and so much more. While internationally, you have the Euro in Europe and the Dollar in the U.S.

That’s why Ecomz provides you with all the major currencies (150+) and has constructed a system that supports real-time currency conversion and fixed manual currency conversion at checkout, transforming the entire transaction to the country’s currency which increases your sales.

Read more about our multi-currency solution here.

8. Should I have my content in Arabic or another language?

Arabic is the most widely used language for business in KSA, so it’s only smart to use it in your online business. This increases your SEO which helps in generating traffic to your website.

If you are planning to sell regionally or internationally, consider adding other languages like English to satisfy different customer groups and cultures.

Ecomz has 22+ languages (Spanish, German, Portuguese, …) and supports a multilingual feature that can automatically translate your content and language and allows for manual translations on your website which eases your work and productivity. We also offer bulk import and export of translations which saves you time and effort.

Learn how to make use of our multilingual feature here.

9. How long does it take?

Building your online business requires time, money, and effort. The biggest challenge you will face is creating your digital product catalog. It will take time since you need to choose professional photographs of your products and then compress and edit them for website use.

Moreover, your products should have descriptive SEO-optimized titles for search engines to pick up and your product variations (color, size, shape) should be strategically chosen. You also need to set up your payment and shipping integrations early since different companies have different procedures and payment methods.

If you decide to go with a hosted platform like ecomz you can expect your online store to be finalized in less than a week or two. The same process takes about 2 or 3 months if you opt to choose a self-hosted platform for your business.

It is integral to understand that the creation of your store is only the first step in your e-commerce journey, anyone can create an online store but not everyone can nurture it to success.

Book a call with our experts to see how you can focus on the growth of your online business here.

10. What features should I start with?

Choosing your features and integrations early is very important for increasing your traffic and converting website visitors into loyal customers.

Here are some important features we recommend for you:

• Google Analytics and Google ads (for SEO & traffic)
• Facebook catalog integration (to sell seamlessly on Facebook and Instagram)
• Facebook pixel (to track Facebook traffic on your website)
• Sales boosters (coupons, discounts, deals, bundles, upsell, etc.)
• Product recommendations (to increase your sales)
• Smart search (for easy search and product discovery)
• Product questions and reviews (for SEO and user-generated content)
• Credit notes (to easily handle payment refunds in your store)
• Chat tools (you know why :))
• Gift cards (easy way to increase your sales)
• Abandoned cart recovery (to not miss any sales)
• Wishlist (increase conversion rate)
• Email marketing (automate and reach your customers)
• etc.

Check how you can add them to your online store here.

Conclusion:

If you are wondering when to start, remember that e-commerce is a billion-dollar industry and thousands of online businesses are already selling in KSA while hundreds are opening per day.

Make sure to start planning for your online business as soon as possible, and remember, your customers will choose you for your brand personality and how you make them feel, so be honest with them and add your human touch to your online store.