Danube Online launches ‘Green Friday’ campaign
Danube Online will launch its “Green Friday” campaign from Friday to Sunday, where hundreds of best-selling items on the Danube app and e-commerce platform will be sold at heavily discounted rates.
“In a first for the region’s and Saudi Arabia’s grocery e-commerce space, we are launching ‘Green Friday’ on Danube.sa and on the Danube app, offering discounted rates on hundreds of items online,” said Majed Al-Tahan, co-founder and CEO of Danube Online.
“We launched danube.sa and the Danube app less than six months ago. Since then, we have seen a huge influx of active monthly customers grocery shopping on our platform, with many repeat buyers. This is a good demonstration of the trust we are building up with customers in Saudi Arabia but many people are yet to try grocery shopping online. Campaigns like ‘Green Friday’ are a great incentive to expose people to the ease of online retail,” he added.
E-commerce in the Middle East is coming of age, slated to explode to a $69 billion industry in only the next two years. It is a market correction long in the making, the result of an advanced, tech-savvy society bridging the gap between the two percent of retail sales conducted online in 2016, and 15 percent of retail sales during the same period in mature e-commerce markets.
Investment is heating up in this space as well, with more VC activity in Middle East e-commerce in the first nine months of this year than in all of 2016. To many industry leaders across the region, however, investment is only the first step.
“Beyond investment, e-commerce truly represents a cultural shift in how societies think about consumption,” said Al-Tahan.
“There’s an experience to the supermarket. Quality you trust, and a vast selection at your fingertips. With e-commerce grocery shopping, getting people to trust that they will experience the same quality of produce and service with significantly more convenience, takes time.”
According to Al-Tahan, Danube’s e-commerce grocery platform and app has launched a number of initiatives to shift public behavior and the “Green Friday” initiative is a nod to the global shopping sensation known “Black Friday” globally, or “White Friday” in the Middle East.