Sixty percent of residents in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) have never bought something online, a survey by Narratiive, a research company in the Middle East and South Africa, has showed.

Narratiive, the firm previously known as Effective Measure, said it had surveyed 3,276 residents of the six GCC countries between August 2017 and February 2018, and only 40 percent said they had shopped online.

Previous research has argued that e-commerce is growing at a fast pace in the GCC, a region with a young and tech-savvy population.  However, sales generated from online purchases in the GCC remain well below those in other markets such as the United Kingdom and the United States.

E-commerce accounted for only 2 percent of the total retail sales in the GCC in 2014, according to a report by Alpen Capital consultancy firm released in January, 2015. Online sales constituted 11 percent and 7.3 percent of the total retail sales in Britain and the United States respectively in 2013, according to Reuters.

The UAE is the top e-commerce market in the GCC, with a market value forecast to reach $6 billion this year, according to a report released by consultancy firm A.T. Kearney last year. 

Regional e-commerce portal Noon.com, which was founded by famous Dubai businessman Mohamed Alabbar, with investments from the Saudi sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund (PIF), went live in Saudi Arabia  and the UAE late last year. Noon’s main rival, UAE-based Souq.com, was bought by global online-retail giant Amazon earlier last year.

The Narratiive survey showed that those who don’t shop online said that they would be encouraged to do so if they found better information about the products, cheaper or free delivery options and more trustworthy payment methods.  Some 43 percent of those who don’t shop online said they were not used to it, according to the report.

“22% of offline shopper respondents don't shop online because they don't trust online payments,” the report added.

Further reading: 

Amazon's Souq v Alabbar's Noon: the Middle East's e-commerce battle

Timeline: Middle East e-commerce battle heats up

Dubai's Emaar buys Namshi stake after Amazon buys Souq.com

Dubai SME and Souq.com launch e-commerce initiative

E-commerce in Saudi Arabia 'has strong growth potential

(Writing by Yasmine Saleh; Editing by Michael Fahy)

(yasmine.saleh@thomsonreuters.com)

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