TAWSEEL GROUP

TAW S E E L G R O U P

Retaining a local identity in the international market

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Ecommerce Revolution LEADING THE

Tawseel is entering its 10th year in a sector which now proudly lists the Company as Kuwait’s largest online retailer Writer: Phoebe Calver | Project Manager: Joshua Mann

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ith early success in the retail industry, Tawseel Ecommerce Group (Tawseel General Trading W.L.L) continues to grow and evolve successfully as it moves into its 10th year. The Kuwaitbased electronic commerce Company currently boasts the title of Kuwait’s largest online retailer, while also retaining its local identity, with sales and logistics offices in both Riyadh and Dubai.

In its present form, Tawseel Ecommerce Group owns and operates five websites: Sheeel.com, Digumz. com, Thouqi.com, Berwaz.com and Taw9eel.com; the latter being the

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Group’s first ever platform and subsequent market leader in the industry.

“Taw9eel is Kuwait’s largest hyper e-store, with more than 20,000 items available to its customers,” comments Frank Berger, Chief Operating Officer at the Company.

“We are able to offer great deals on electronics, groceries, beauty, fashion, wholesale products and much more; all of our Taw9eel products are delivered within four hours of purchase.”

Sheeel.com ships its products to nine countries in the Middle East, offering electronics, beauty, home and gaming products, consistently beating its competitors with both its

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INCHOO

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nchoo is a full-service ecommerce agency with a strong focus on creating unique customer experiences. We offer a complete set of services which will help your business thrive and we’re passionately dedicated to designing, building and supporting your growth.

We started out back in 2008 and ever since, we’ve been actively engaged with the ecommerce community via our blog. Our expertise has been further tested and proven as we got involved in the various ecommerce certification and partner programmes. Currently, we rank as one of the companies with the highest number of certified Magento employees which ensures delivery of complete solutions and support for the customer in the long run.

The Tawseel Group is a prominent advocate and supporter of home talent

online deals and day-to-day prices.

Alongside Sheeel.com, Digumz.com has specialised as the Company’s dedicated website for the booming gamer community.

As a particularly prominent advocate of supporting home talent, Thouqi. com has experienced rapid growth within women’s fashion, offering chic styles from leading MENA designers for the MENA region.

“The success that we’ve experienced with Berwaz.com is an accolade that the Company is very proud of, now as the largest online marketplace for art and artists in the Middle East,” affirms Berger. “Our unique website serves consumers and artists alike, we offer our customers a wide range of beautiful photographs, paintings, calligraphy and graphics to choose from, while also providing artists with a safe platform to sell their work.

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The success that we’ve experienced with Berwaz.com is an accolade that the Company is very proud of, now as the largest online marketplace for art and artists in the Middle East

We’ve been working with the Taw9eel group for five consecutive years and during that period we helped five of their projects thrive. Building fast and beautiful sites which are also stable, scalable and secure has been our pleasure, especially because we saw a strong growth in all of the KPIs. All of this shows our dedication to building long term relationships with our clients. We combine technical Xxxxxxxx xxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxx excellence with expertise in online marketing and if you need ecommerce specialists who are going to help your business grow and increase revenue, we’re here for you.

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“A real differentiator for us is the additional facility we offer which allows customers to print and sell their own photographs or artwork at competitive prices; after opening in February, 2014, we now service nine countries in the Middle East.”

For the Company to remain competitive across all aforementioned sites in the ecommerce space, it is paramount that the levels of traffic throughout all sites maintains a healthy increase, and in 2016 Tawseel saw a strong 40 percent increase across all of its assets.

“We managed to do this while maintaining a focused customer acquisition scheme that improved our overall conversions,” explains Berger.

“Our conversion rates improved by 20 percent to, on average, reach 4.7 percent overall. In some cases our channels’s conversion rates improved to 7.75 percent (Taw9eel iOS App).”

Its growth so far is just a snapshot of the success to come

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The launch of iOS and android apps for the Company’s major assets, Taw9eel and Sheeel, in 2014 is one of the many commitments that Tawseel has made a success of over a short space of time. Another example of its commitment was the promise made in 2013 to deliver all Taw9eel products within four hours of purchase all over Kuwait, which the Company

has achieved, while maintaining its 24-seven service.

International marketing

As you would expect with the growth of any company, particularly when it is focusing on selling into international markets, a new and innovative approach needs to be taken to attract new business.

“In Saudi Arabia we operate our own warehouse and sales team in Riyadh, which supports the large and

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The Company commits to deliver all Taw9eel products within four hours of purchase all over Kuwait varied needs of Sheeel. com when shipping to all destinations in Saudi Arabia,” says Berger. “The plan is to launch Taw9eel.com in Saudi Arabia and Riyadh by the second quarter of 2017, with a future focus on Egypt.

“Thouqi.com already ships its products worldwide and we intend to

place more of an emphasis on our international marketing this year. We have a unique product offering that is well positioned for us to work with when it comes to international expansion.”

Appreciating the importance of a higher complexity that will arise in the Company’s move into international

waters, Tawseel consistently endeavours to develop its technology and offerings. In 2015, the Company was working through the development process of its own search engine, working with a similar technology to Apache Solr.

“Continuing with this process in 2016, we implemented a complex, deep learning platform based on Apache Prediction IO, Spark and Zookeeper among other technologies,” continues Berger.

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Continuously improving and protecting its products

“This is currently applied to product suggestions where we have seen an immediate impact on average purchase sizes; we plan to use this platform as a means of automating a large proportion of our on-site sales and marketing initiatives.”

Tried and tested

It is the nature of such a fast-paced industry that companies need to be dedicated to monitoring all new technologies and trends that are

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Logistical perspective The automation Tawseel relies on is the key to driving Company costs down

entering the market.

Berger explains: “When you miss out on technology, you’ll leave yourself very open to disruption and therefore the Company would experience losses or, even worse, being wiped out.”

Through close monitoring of the industry, Tawseel has recently found three points of interest to expand on. From a product development perspective, the democratisation of sellers which is currently occurring at

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Monitoring space to improve efficiencies

platform but this is a field which is still in its infancy; for 2017 and beyond we will make continued efforts to develop this platform and implement it across all of our sales, marketing and decision making.”

Tawseel is making profound efforts to ensure that the Company is constantly aware of the main competitive advantages and unique selling points, by asking itself a few questions to establish if it is worth the Company’s time: How could the Company improve and protect the product? How could it acquire more USPs? Where did a very fast rate in the Middle East and automation Tawseel relies on is the key the product go wrong and why?

North Africa region is attracting a lot of to driving Company costs down, and “Our future plans are then based on the answers we get from these attention from companies in this area. is an area of particular focus with new “We have set up all of our platforms technologies being developed every questions; we will launch initiatives to benefit from this trend; small to day; therefore it is having to monitor and experiment with those and tweak medium sized suppliers, merchants, this space to improve its efficiency, them, either with the intention to in particular with the previously restaurants, artists and fashion launch them with full backing or dump mentioned target to deliver all orders them and learn from our mistakes,” designers can benefit from plugging within four hours of purchase. into our various platforms, such as concludes Berger. “This is a tried and “From a technology perspective, tested cycle in which we are honest logistics, marketing and payment platforms with no upfront costs,” our main focus is on pursuing machine with ourselves and nothing is too continues Berger. learning and big data. We have already precious to be changed, improved built a strong machine learning upon or abandoned.”

From a logistical perspective, the

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TAWSEEL GENERAL TRADING WLL Sharq Block 6, Building 51 Kuwait City Kuwait T: +965 182 1010 E: hello@taw9eel.com www.tawseelgroup.com

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