• Al Sheikh _ e-commerce is a necessity to economists and business owners

    05/05/2016

    ​61% of cyber buyers in major cities in Saudi Arabia.
    Al Sheikh e-commerce is a necessity to economists and business owners.
    The spread of relying on e-commerce requires good reading to the available opportunities.
          The member of the Council of Asharqia Chamber of Commerce and head of the Communications and Information Technology, Ibrahim Al Sheikh, stressed that e-commerce has become as urgent necessity and demand has its clear contributions in the national economy, pointing to the urgent need for awareness of being no longer an option to accept or reject, but rather a necessity forces its presence on all economists and business owners.
    This was during the opening of the e-commerce seminar, held by the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology in collaboration with Asharqia Chamber, on Wednesday, May 4 th, following a workshop on the same subject that lasted for three consecutive days from May 1 to 3
    Al Sheikh said, the country has paid great attention to e-commerce, and that is by enhancing the legislation that organize it, which guarantees the rights of the parties which contribute to increasing confidence in them, noting that the high rates of Internet use in the Kingdom, and the continuous quality improvement and the speed of the service, moved the dependence indicators of online commerce in the Kingdom from the construction phase of the concept of e-marketing, to the positive and growing dependence phase.
    Al Sheikh noted, that the growing in the reliance on e-commerce, requires reading and studying opportunities and experiences, and then determining the quality of the service or product or technical project that the market needs to enter with a competitive advantage.
    For his part, the consultant in marketing and media, Fahd bin Abdul Rahman Al Fehaid, the benefits of e-commerce, in terms of lower costs and the growing number of consumers base, as well as the transparency of their prices, and their economic and social impact both on the partial level or personal level or the economy as a whole, differentiating  between electronic store and the e-seller, the first being the destination required to work in his direction, urging young people to take advantage of attractive growth opportunities in the uses of the Internet and the motivating facilities provided by the government to raise the e-commerce, to start their own electronic businesses.
    Al Fehaid Said, that most e-buyers are in the regions of Riyadh, Jeddah, of which 61% of the total transactions in the Kingdom, followed by a contribution by Dammam and Mecca and Medina by 16% of the total online transactions in the Kingdom, which indicates that the online marketplace is still in the process of expansion and that the current time is best suited to catch the opportunities of this market ..
    Fehaid considered that the airline tickets, electronics and hotel reservations are the most sectors that witness online transactions sections at a rate of 56% of the total transactions, the fashion industry does not extend the 8%.
    Faheed pointed to a number of successful experiences in the field of e-commerce, both at the international level as Amazon and eBay or at the local level as a Bahar-mail and its store Vanilla, referring their success to their ability to discover opportunities in an effective manner.
    Meanwhile the Legal Adviser at the Ministry of Trade and Industry, Abdulaziz Al Dehaim, has talked about the new e-commerce system project, showing the most important axis approved by the ministry, pointing many of the prominent points the new project includes, such as declaring the merchant data ,his name and means to contact him and the name of the record, and being obliged to a statement of terms and conditions of the contract for the consumer, as well as an invoice showing the purchase cost including all fees, and the date of delivery, while the residence merchant is enough in case a particular place of the business has not been determined.
    Al Dehaim, explained that the new system gives the right of the consumer to terminate the contract electronically within fifteen days, as long as he did not benefit from it, and assumes the consumer return costs, with the exception of some cases, he has the right to terminate the contract if the delay occurred for more than fifteen days, and get back his money amount.
    He stressed that the new e-commerce system project imposes sanctions on violators of its provisions, including the warning and imposing a fine and canceling the commercial registration, blocking the violating e-shop, with doubling of the punishment in case of repetition, as well as blocking the violating e-shops with a statement of  its violations.
    Dehaim pointed to the electronic service project (Maroof), expecting it to be one of the best ways to search and evaluate the electronic stores in the Kingdom, which will benefit and interest on all dealers in this trade either sellers or buyers, in the field of e-commerce, shops and increasing the trust in them.
    He added that this service will enhance the trust between buyer and seller, enabling the seller to reach easily a largest segment, it also gives a clear picture of the quality of e-store services by customers and their evaluation comments, as it enables the buyer to write comments on the merchant page and evaluate the purchase and look at the experience comments and experiences of other customers.
    He added: Maroof service gives the seller an opportunity to market his e-store in different platforms, and besides that, Maroof enables the e-store owners to add all his accounts in social media and his website and means of communication with him to his in Maroof Web site making it easier for buyers to reach it.
    For his part, marketing and communications director at the Monetary Authority, Mohammed Al Jawban, has talked about payments as one of the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency regulations system, noting that it is a central system to view and pay bills and other payments electronically, as its primary mission is to facilitate and speed up the payment of bills and other payments process across all banking channels in the Kingdom.
    And Jawban has presented a new service, which has been activated during the last period with many channels, which is payment service account, noting that it is a new service that provides the electronic online option for payment security for merchants and consumers alike, without the need for cards or cash, it will be debited directly from the consumer bank account dedicated to the e-commerce, and  sending it in at the expense of traders, pointing that the system is like a separate e-wallet for the current accounts for customers, so it guarantees the current account to the maximum level possible.
    The seminar was concluded by a review of the Director of senior customer accounts in the Saudi Postal Corporation, Turki Alwashmi to the different ways in which relied on by the institution to delivery and transportation, explaining the extent of the refections of e-commerce growth on the growth of parcel services, stressing the importance of ensuring if the companies are licensed or not, referring to what it is owned by the Saudi Postal Corporation of high potentials to support the e-commerce starting from depots and sorting centers through excellent  mail sectors and Wasil service ending with the fleet of trucks by 1,500 trucks for transportation solutions and about 650 distribution and coverage vehicles .
    At the end of the seminar, Alwashmi called everyone to register in the national title project because of its considerable role in the progress of e-commerce cycle, and how it allows for electronic shops the opportunity to benefit from databases that is included in the national title, referring that the idea of ​​the national title is among the important developmental ideas invented by the Saudi Postal Corporation.

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