The United Arab Emirates has a young, dynamic, and mostly mobile-based eCommerce market (UAE). Customers in Australia, Brazil, Mexico, the United Kingdom, and the United States use their cell phones during nearly every stage of their shopping journeys. During their most recent trips to the shop, over 70% of local customers utilized their phones in some manner, whether it was to read product reviews, make payments using a mobile wallet, track the progress of their online orders, or use a navigation tool to identify things in-store.
The UAE’s consumers’ significant desire for mobile-enabled purchasing experiences is one of the numerous traits that distinguish the UAE’s eCommerce business from others across the world.
The nuances of how the UAE eCommerce industry differs from other significant global economies are explored in “The 2022 Global Shopping Index: UAE Edition,” along with what those variances entail for companies hoping to stand out. In order to understand how UAE purchasing tastes differ from those of other nations, which shopping and payment features local consumers value most, and how well local retailers are satisfying their customers’ needs, we questioned 13,114 consumers and 3,100 merchants across six countries.
The following are some of the main conclusions of our study:
- In the UAE, smartphones are essential to both the in-store and online buying experience. Whether they were buying in-person or remotely online, 65 percent of UAE customers utilized cell phones at some point during their most recent retail excursions.
- Those in the UAE use curbside pickup and in-store pickup more frequently than customers in other nations. A third or less of local eCommerce customers choose curbside pickup or in-store pickup for their most recent orders.
- UAE retailers exacerbate buying friction by offering cross-channel purchasing options that consumers want but are not of the caliber they require.
- UAE retailers exacerbate buying friction by offering cross-channel purchasing options that consumers want but are not of the caliber they require. Customers in the UAE experience 35% more purchasing friction than the average customer across all six countries when they order things on their cellphones and pick them up in-store, suggesting that the quality of the mobile features they are utilizing may not be on pace with those observed elsewhere.
These are just a few of the major conclusions we were able to draw from studying the UAE eCommerce business. The UAE Edition of “The 2022 Global Digital Buying Index” offers a first-hand view of what makes this market distinctive on a global scale and how retailers may customize their feature offerings to fit regional shopping tastes.
