RIYADH: E-commerce in Saudi Arabia is growing and expanding rapidly and, further, it represents a promising future for buyers and sellers, Al-Riyadh newspaper reported quoting an e-commerce expert.
Abbas Safadiya, director general of souq.com in a lecture he gave recently, said the number of the Internet users in the Kingdom has been steadily increasing; currently it stands at 45 percent of the overall population, most of them over 18, a matter that makes it easier to reach the targeted category by e-commerce.
The e-commerce expert was giving a lecture at the Riyadh Chamber of Commerce and Industry (RCCI), which was organized by the RCCI Marketing Committee on Saturday.
E-commerce is projected to grow and succeed, not only in world markets, but also in the Saudi market due to increasing use of the Internet coupled with the introduction of continued improvements on quality and speed of services, notably among the youth category who are known with their continued sentiment to buy, the e-commerce expert said.
He stressed the importance of creation of credibility and guidelines that will govern buying and selling transactions in addition to issuance of regulatory systems to safeguard rights of concerned parties that will, hopefully, increase confidence.
He said there should be an alliance between marketing and selling sites with search engines such as Yahoo and Maktoub to promote such sites in addition to exchange of ad spaces with other business and news websites which will, supposedly, attract new customers with no costs on advertising.
The e-commerce expert advised sellers not to advertise their goods through e-forums due to absence of regulations and poor search capabilities in addition to the possible spread of fraud, where sellers and buyers could be held victims accordingly.
© Arab News 2012
