At the Chamber's branch in Qatif Province: four national experiments confirm the added value of "electronic commerce"
As part of its efforts to enhance the e-commerce experience, as it brings value-added features to the national economy and is fully aligned with the requirements of Vision 2030, Asharqia Chamber, represented by the Business Council of Qatif branch, held a meeting on Wednesday (April 24, 2019) during which four national experiences in e-commerce were reviewed.
The meeting was moderated by the Vice President of the Business Council of Qatif branch, Hisham Al Seif.
It witnessed a heavy presence of men and women, including a number of owners of applications that provide direct services to citizens.
The session was characterized by a direct dialogue session between the guestspeakers (three women and a man) and the audience, which lasted for more than two hours.
The meeting comes in less than a week after the Eastern Trade Forum 2019, which focused on electronic commerce and its impact on the retail sector, during which it reviewed many successful experiences in this regard and reviewed all the regulations and legislation governing this activity, which appears to be a domestic trade option (specifically retail) in the future.
During the session, Entesar Al-Mesbah (the owner of an application that provide family servicess) said that her beginning was in 2012 when she was pursuing the issue of obtaining the monthly salary provided by the program "Hafiz" as it requires the follow-up, which push her to work with the application and follow-up to obtain a salary that was in the range of 2000 riyals.
This follow-up was a first step that led her to start online shopping, as she was buying something every day and sell it directly.
Then, she shopped for her family, and opened herself an electronic page on Facebook.
With the passage of time, many people used it and its services, as she has become 62 thousand followers, and has been receiving orders at the rate of 20 orders per day.
This rate increases during the seasons and holidays.
She pointed out that the balance at the beginning was "zero" as she borrowed 3 thousand riyals to start her own business.
The activity of the business is continuous and with lasting return.
Nargis Al-Bader (Deputy General Manager of an application that provides maintenance services to citizens) explained that the beginning was in 2017, as it was started from the idea of developing an application that provides home services with less effort and less cost.
The beginning was with a dialogue between four people, but now, they are 16 people.
The services provided were from Qatif and have been progressing throughout the Kingdom and is looking forward to having its services outside the Kingdom specifically Egypt and the Sultanate of Oman.
The number of participants in the application are 30 thousand subscribers, as100 applications are received daily, and the application is being used even in remote areas.
For his part, Hossam Al-Yahya (the owner of an application serving catering services in the province of Qatif) said that four years ago, he was thinking with some of his colleagues about the project is not repeated.
They all heard a number of successful applications and experiments, as they asked for a "business dinner" and it took a quarter of an hour, so they talked about the restaurant and about the different things it offers.
From this position, they reached the idea of launching an application to search for restaurants and reviewed the lists.
Then, they went to find an application that offers a delivery service, therefore, they decided to work on their own and to follow up on their own potential without any borrowing.
They contacted the restaurants and success was their ally.
After a number of obstacles, the results were encouraging with registered restaurant sales increasing by 10 to 50 per cent, leading to an increase in subscribers.
At the beginning, it attracted a new customer every day, however, they receive every day 80 new customers every day now.
The application is implementing 12 -13 thousand sales per month.
Zahra Khalifa (owner of the application for infant service) said that the project began ten years ago, when I opened an account on Facebook and Instagram, and had a few customers, and was providing requests for infants by myself.
She is making clothes and the requirements of the newborn by a small sewing machine provided by herself.
With the passage of time and high demand for the product, she could attract a number of labors.
It has a laboratory, and has an electronic account of 242,000 subscribers.
In this regard, she stressed that her husband's help and ability to coordinate family tasks and work tasks was the most important factor in her success.
During the meeting Malik Al-Kashi talked about "Badir," which is a government program to support small, medium and emerging enterprises that was established in 2007 from the capital Riyadh.
It is expanding to six large cities and will reach nine in the near future.
He said that the goal of the program is to prolong the life of startups, especially since 70% of these companies do not last more than five years.
The program was established to support Saudi youth, diversify income sources and create non-traditional job opportunities.
The program has contributed to the creation of 10,000 jobs.
He stressed that the program embraces existing projects and has a path to support the new ideas that establish training camps for the development and activation.
He added, "We provide legal, training and advisory services."
