Aramex, the Dubai-based international courier, announced on Sunday a partnership with Saudi Arabian medical services company Al-Dawaa to launch ‘hundreds’ of new Aramex branches inside Al-Dawaa’s pharmacies.

The company said that the deal would help it to cater to a growing e-commerce sector in the kingdom.

“The partnership will cover all cities in Saudi. Al-Dawaa has 800 (pharmacy) branches in Saudi Arabia. We have 121 branches for Aramex in Saudi Arabia,” said Aramex’s general manager for Saudi Arabia, Abdulaziz Al Nowaiser, in a phone interview with Zawya on Sunday.

“The partnership with Al-Dawaa will expand our presence in Saudi Arabia so that we will be able to cover all villages and cities,” Al Nowaiser added. “E-commerce in Saudi Arabia is growing at a fast pace… Many people are buying online in Saudi and many companies have launched online portals in Saudi in the past years and that is why we launched this partnership.”

E-commerce is said to be growing at a fast pace across the Gulf Cooperation Council countries (GCC), according to several reports by industry experts and consultancy firms. A report by A.T. Kearny released late last year stated that it expected that Saudi Arabia would overtake the United Arab Emirates to become the biggest e-commerce market in the GCC by year 2020, with a market value of $10 billion, compared to a $9 billion forecast for the UAE.

Aramex said in a statement sent to media on Sunday that the first phase of the partnership with Al-Dawaa will enable Aramex to launch 20 branches inside Al-Dawaa pharmacies. The 20 branches are already up and running, according to Aramex’s website. The press statement said a second phase would add hundreds of new branches, but it did not give a timeline for the roll-out. The branches will mainly serve as pick-up centers for online shoppers, according to Al Nowaiser.

Aramex is the delivery service used by noon.com online shopping portal which launched in Saudi Arabia and the UAE last year. Aramex offers its e-commerce customers the option to either pick up their purchases from an Aramex branch or get them delivered to nearby pick-up points. 

“Some shoppers don’t like people coming to their homes to deliver and prefer to get their purchases from our branches, so instead of going to a faraway branch, this partnership will allow them to go to branches that are nearer to their locations,” Al Nowaiser said. 

 

(Reporting by Yasmine Saleh; Editing by Michael Fahy)

(yasmine.saleh@thomsonreuters.com)

© ZAWYA 2018