FeaturedMiddle EastNews

Middle East: Region Enjoys Amazon Prime Day Week with “Many Thousands of Packages to be Delivered, Soon by Delivery Drone”

Prime Day in July is Amazon’s annu­al and glob­al week-long deal event, exclu­sive­ly aimed at Prime Mem­bers, and this year (July 16th to 21st), those liv­ing in the Mid­dle East includ­ing the coun­tries of Qatar, UAE and Sau­di Ara­bia, are enjoy­ing an oppor­tu­ni­ty to pur­chase the many avail­able online bar­gains.

While Sau­di Ara­bia first joined Ama­zon in 2020, the UAE fol­lowed suit last Autumn. Qatar quick­ly fol­lowed after being able to access prod­ucts via its UAE branch.

The Web­site Link 

https://www.amazon.ae

Ronal­do Mouchawar, VP of Ama­zon Mid­dle East and North Africa, com­ment­ed,  “Online shop­pers in Qatar have been ask­ing for a way to eas­i­ly find and pur­chase prod­ucts avail­able in their loca­tion, and this new expan­sion of the Inter­na­tion­al Shop­ping expe­ri­ence to Qatar does just that.”

He con­tin­ued, “Qatar res­i­dents can also enjoy some of our most excit­ing Amazon.ae sales events such as White Fri­day, our biggest sale of the year com­plete with incred­i­ble deals and pro­mo­tions.” Cus­tomers can pur­chase prod­ucts from a range of cat­e­gories includ­ing fash­ion, elec­tron­ics, and books, all of which will be shipped from the UAE.

The plat­form per­son­alis­es the shop­ping expe­ri­ence based on cus­tomer loca­tion and ship­ping address and pro­vides the option to make orders using local or inter­na­tion­al deb­it and cred­it cards before being sent direct­ly direct­ly to their doorsteps in Qatar.

Amazon.ae offers accu­rate deliv­ery times and ship­ping costs, includ­ing import fees. The com­pa­ny also over­sees cross-bor­der cus­toms clear­ance on the customer’s behalf.

Mean­while, Sau­di Ara­bia cre­at­ed a spe­cial and unique ‘Made in Sau­di’ (MIS) Ama­zon store­front last Autumn. The move is to enhance entre­pre­neur­ship and small busi­ness­es in the King­dom. The launch marked a piv­otal moment in Saudi’s pur­suit of eco­nom­ic growth and self-suf­fi­cien­cy.

https://www.amazon.sa/b?ie=UTF8&node=66101851031&language=en_AE

The launch of the store was announced fol­low­ing an agree­ment signed between Eng. Abdul­rah­man Althukair, CEO of the Sau­di Exports Devel­op­ment Author­i­ty, and Abdo Chlala, coun­try man­ag­er of Ama­zon Sau­di Ara­bia. This was sealed at the ‘Made in Sau­di’ Exhi­bi­tion 2023 (Octo­ber 16th to 19th), held at the Roshn Front in Riyadh.

The Ama­zon-based store pro­vides cus­tomers with a vast selec­tion of high-qual­i­ty local prod­ucts includ­ing health and per­son­al care, while encour­ag­ing them to sup­port local busi­ness.

Althukair com­ment­ed, “The Made in Sau­di pro­gram places local busi­ness­es at the heart of a col­lab­o­ra­tive com­mu­ni­ty. It plays a key role in pro­mot­ing Sau­di prod­ucts under one uni­fied, trust­ed brand.”

Thou­sands of local busi­ness­es have received endorse­ment and cer­ti­fi­ca­tion through the MIS pro­gram, which sig­ni­fies qual­i­ty and authen­tic­i­ty. There­fore, they now have an oppor­tu­ni­ty to access Ama­zon cus­tomers around the world. Addi­tion­al­ly, Ama­zon launched the Glob­al Reg­is­tra­tion Pro­gram, which stream­lines the process for local com­pa­nies to sell their prod­ucts glob­al­ly.

Eng. Abdul­rah­man Althukair

Chlala remarked, “The store sup­ports these local sell­ers as they expand their oper­a­tions online. Launch­ing the Sau­di Made store is the first step towards a long-term part­ner­ship with Sau­di Exports.” Adding, “This reit­er­ates our com­mit­ment to invest in local busi­ness­es and SMBs, pro­vid­ing them with the tools and ser­vices they need to suc­ceed.”

Since Ama­zon’s Sau­di Ara­bia launch in 2020, the com­pa­ny has con­sis­tent­ly invest­ed in the King­dom. More­over, col­lab­o­ra­tion with Monsha’at, the Small and Medi­um Enter­pris­es Gen­er­al Author­i­ty with an eye on the country’s ‘Vision 2030’, has boost­ed this com­mit­ment. 

https://www.monshaat.gov.sa/en

Amazon.sa has set an ambi­tious goal of host­ing 40,000 Sau­di sell­ers by 2025. It pro­vides them with tools like the Ama­zon Sell­er Mobile App and diverse ship­ping options, includ­ing Ful­fil­ment by Ama­zon. These ini­tia­tives enable busi­ness­es to serve cus­tomers more effi­cient­ly and swift­ly, sup­port­ing Sau­di Arabia’s evolv­ing dig­i­tal land­scape.

So, what’s the link with UAM? Sim­ples. Drone Deliv­ery. The rapid­ly expand­ing online Ama­zon busi­ness in the Mid­dle East leads to the obvi­ous assump­tion that drone deliv­ery will begin soon, once Ama­zon sets up prod­uct ware­hous­es in the region. No-more import duties, no-more fuss.

Giv­en how enthu­si­as­tic the region is about all things Air Mobil­i­ty, if Amazon’s stop/start drone deliv­ery tri­als over the last ten years are final­ly resolved, then the Mid­dle East with a rapid­ly grow­ing pop­u­la­tion is “a prime area” for the com­pa­ny to focus on. 

(News Source: www.dohanews.co/qatar/economymiddleeast.com)

(Top image: Ama­zon Deliv­ery Drone — Cred­it: Prime Air)

For the lat­est news, insights and con­tent regard­ing the glob­al Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty mar­ket, please join the fol­low­ing eVTOL Insights chan­nels: What­sAppFace­book, Insta­gramSpo­ti­fyApple Pod­castsYouTubeand LinkedIn.

eVTOL Insights is part of the Industry Insights Group. Registered in the UK. Company No: 14395769