Demand for online shopping rises
MANAMA: The demand for the use of online stores in Bahrain increased by more than 20 per cent during March, expecting this percentage to double after the measures taken to close a large part of the activities and commercial stores to prevent the spread of coronavirus, Bab Al Bahrain chief executive Emad Al Asfoor has said.
The company is specialised in E-payment.
“According to the customers’ records in our company, and based on our semi- comprehensive monitoring of the market, we can confirm that approximately a thousand commercial stores in Bahrain moved completely or almost completely to sell their products or provide their services online, along with a growing interest from most of the merchants to move their business to the Internet,” Mr Al Asfoor said.
“We have almost everything ready in Bahrain to build an integrated e-commerce system. We have a strong, reliable and stable Internet network, with fibre service and fifth-generation networks, and the access rate for that network is very high, because almost all the population have a smartphone or more,” he added.
Mr Al Asfoor noted that unfortunately most of the banks and financial companies are still unable to absorb the requirements of the previous and current market to provide electronic payment solutions needed by online stores, as most of those banks and institutions still rely on traditional and costly methods in providing these solutions.
He pointed out that a large number of about 80,000 small and medium enterprises in Bahrain – unfortunately – are still far from using online shopping and electronic payment methods in their work, this exposes them to lose many commercial opportunities, and places them in fierce competition with local, regional and international institutions that provide their services and products at a lower cost and with greater speed.
Mr Al Asfoor added that the expansion of e-commerce in Bahrain supports the national plans aimed at digital economy transformation, opens new job opportunities for Bahrainis, and encourages the launch of new Bahraini products and sell them in regional and international markets. This expansion also would support the slogan “Made in Bahrain”, by launching more products and linking them in the name of Bahrain, just as is the case with Bahraini sweets or Margadosh water and reaching these products to regional and global markets.
Al Asfoor spoke specifically about commercial sectors such as restaurants, libraries, flower shops and chocolates.
“Application statistics such as (Talabat) indicate that selling restaurants to their food via the Internet is more than twice as much as the actual in restaurants’ sales, and this means that business methods itself have changed. If I am a restaurant owner, I will not be concerned with the dining room as much as I care about the kitchen itself. Likewise, if I am a library owner, I will be interested in the photography and production department more than my interest in the display and sale department. Economy and business are transforming into digitalisation and if the business owner can’t keep up with this trend, he won’t be able to develop his business and maybe will have to exit the market.”
Source: http://www.gdnonline.com/Details/788179
