INTERVIEW
HOW HAVE YOUR E-COMMERCE OPERATIONS EVOLVED?
We started e-commerce operations a few years ago and volumes have been steadily growing. In Saudi Arabia especially, we have seen strong demand, but due to the low quality of solutions offered by last mile operators we had to take the last mile in-house. So we developed our own fleet, and at first we were using very few technological tools, just WhatsApp and we found that we needed better technology to make it more efficient. But, even without any advanced technology at our disposal, we were better at the customer service and delivery guarantees than our last mile partners.
HOW DID YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH FAREYE COME ABOUT?
When we decided that we needed to scale up our operations, we researched the tools we needed and spoke with eight different companies, and ultimately decided to work with FarEye. The implementation was very smooth and easy. It’s now been almost a year that we’ve been working with them, and the brands that we are delivering trust us more than they trust the last mile operators we were working with before. Our volumes in Saudi Arabia are now growing much faster and our KPIs for last mile deliveries are far stronger. We have no claims of damages or non-delivery and we’re able to consistently deliver on-time.
IS THIS REGION-WIDE, OR ONLY IN SAUDI ARABIA?
The technology solutions provided by FarEye are only for Saudi Arabia. In the UAE and other MENA markets, we’re able to work with last mile companies, because they’re providing a service level that is on-par with what we expect for our brands and their customers.
WHAT KSA-SPECIFIC CHALLENGES DOES THIS TECHNOLOGY HELP YOU MITIGATE?
The challenge in Saudi Arabia is that most of the customers are Arabic speakers and you don’t have addresses like what you have in the rest of the world, people will just put a street name or mobile number. So then you have to contact the customer and ask them to pin their location and select a time slot for delivery. This was being done manually, which is very time-consuming. With FarEye, we’re able to send a text message automatically the moment a sale is made.
The customer is then invited to pin their location and that location is then automatically added to the client’s account so that the delivery driver doesn’t need to call. Furthermore, the platform provided by FarEye allows us to integrate the sales and delivery sides, so that the customer is only ever dealing with one brand. It’s not that they purchase a pair of shoes from one retailer, for example, but then deal with Chalhoub Group for delivery, from start to finish it’s the brand that they are in contact with. We wanted to replicate what was in the store into the delivery process.
WHY WAS THIS SO IMPORTANT?
It was important for us to get our last mile operation right in Saudi Arabia because it is a market with the greatest opportunity, the greatest potential, in the region. KSA and the UAE are our two biggest markets in the region. We have to be able to retain our customers, because a bad experience using an online platform can cost you a customer.
The e-commerce market in Saudi Arabia will eventually overtake the UAE, but only as a domestic market. The
UAE will always remain a regional hub for crossborder e-commerce logistics because this is where most of the big companies have their regional inventory here in Jebel Ali.
It’s up to the last mile operators in Saudi Arabia to enhance their services and support the development of the local e-commerce market. And we do see this happening to some extent, I have met with several start-ups who are using technology, so the market is changing very fast.