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The pandemic resulted in an abrupt shift for a lot of brick-and-mortar retailers, the kind that may take many years to attain, and compelled many to maneuver on-line for the primary time.
However for a overwhelming majority of retail retailers within the Center East and North Africa (MENA) area, who have been already underserved from a expertise perspective, that huge shift introduced new challenges that they couldn’t have ready for.
Sanad Yaghi, co-founder of United Arab Emirates-based retailer administration platform Dukkantek, instructed PYMNTS that as eCommerce gained traction within the wake of the pandemic, many retailers seeking to promote on-line have been confronted with a continuing dilemma: “‘How do I handle my on-line retailer stock, in addition to my in-store stock?’”
See additionally: Is Amazon Trying to Take out Midday within the Center East?
Based on Yaghi, it was a particularly irritating course of of getting to manually replace their eCommerce web sites, which in the end left loads of clients unhappy with product substitutions and merchandise not being out there.
It subsequently turned quickly obvious that there was a spot out there that wanted to be stuffed, and it’s a problem that Dukkantek has taken on because it launched in 2021.
As Yaghi put it, whereas bigger firms have been on the forefront of eCommerce progress in MENA, Dukkantek is concentrated on the “the little guys” that want instruments and sources to thrive in a digital setting.
The agency does this by offering a totally digital storefront answer that allows small retailers to simply arrange and handle eCommerce operations. The platform additionally permits for a seamless integration between a digital retailer and a bodily retail location in order that “simply by managing their brick-and-mortar retailer, [merchants] are concurrently managing their eCommerce location in actual time which makes [day-to-day business operations] tremendous easy,” he defined.
Connecting the Bodily, Digital Gross sales Dots
Past inventory administration, Dukkantek additionally gives a seamless integration of a broad vary of cost choices in order that purchasers are usually not restricted when deciding learn how to settle their payments.
On-line funds are enabled by a typical cost gateway whereas offline retailers can go for newer expertise comparable to software program point-of-sale (Delicate POS) that permits them to just accept card funds straight on their cell phone or NFC machine with out the necessity for any further {hardware}.
This revolutionary answer, he stated, “reduces the general value of getting to purchase a type of particular mPOS [mobile point-of-sale] gadgets, making funds extra accessible for the overwhelming majority of retailers.”
He added that by offering an all-in-one answer, Dukkantek can bundle all the data that it gathers from retailers’ brick-and-mortar retail places, comparable to product rely, and show all that in actual time on their digital storefronts.
And since the platform connects the dots between bodily and digital gross sales, companies can get an outline of their total retail operations, whereas being spared the time-consuming, manually intensive technique of updating their on-line inventory counts or managing a separate eCommerce web site.
“With our answer, that principally by no means occurs anymore as a result of they handle all of it from one place,” Yaghi stated.
Getting ready for a Cashless Future
In about 18 months of launch, Dukkantek has managed to scale throughout seven markets, powering the digital ecosystem for over 10,000 micro-merchants and mom-and-pop outlets throughout the UAE, Oman, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Turkey and Saudi Arabia.
The Dubai-based startup introduced earlier this month that it closed an oversubscribed $10 million pre-Sequence A funding spherical, bringing its whole capital raised to $15.2 million. That may be thought of a formidable feat for a younger agency, notably at a time of rising investor issues and a retracting funding panorama throughout the globe.
Learn extra: UAE Startup Dukkantek Raises $10M to Develop Retail POS System
As Yaghi instructed PYMNTS, a part of the corporate’s progress has been fueled by the pandemic-induced digital transformation throughout MENA markets, to not point out the robust push from regulators within the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) space, together with Saudi Arabia and Oman, which might be shifting towards a cashless financial system within the close to future.
For Dukkantek’s retailers, this transition to digital funds signifies that the subsequent 5 years will likely be vital.
“What we’re attempting to do is put together retailers for that future actuality and be sure that they’ve all of the instruments they want to have the ability to survive that,” he stated.
See additionally: BNPL FinTech valU Acquires Paynas to Increase Providing in MENA
Shifting ahead, Yaghi stated the cash raised will likely be primarily used for world enlargement, that’s, to take the corporate’s answer “from the [MENA] area to the world” as a result of Dukkantek has “a worldwide product and a worldwide answer.”
He additionally pointed to plans so as to add new providers to Dukkantek’s present providing, notably one which the corporate has recognized as the subsequent huge downside that must be solved for retailers — working capital lending.
“We really feel that we will present immense worth on that entrance, each for our grocery retailers and for our non-grocery retailer,” Yaghi stated. “We’ve a wealth of information to have the ability to make good lending selections.”
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NEW PYMNTS SURVEY FINDS 3 IN 4 CONSUMERS WITH STRONG DEMAND FOR SUPER APPSAbout: The findings in PYMNTS’ new research, “The Tremendous App Shift: How Customers Need To Save, Store And Spend In The Related Financial system,” a collaboration with PayPal, analyzed the responses from 9,904 shoppers in Australia, Germany, the U.Ok. and the U.S. and confirmed robust demand for a single multifunctional tremendous apps slightly than utilizing dozens of people ones.
https://www.pymnts.com/cbdc/2022/world-accepts-cbdcs-digital-dollar-debate-shifts/partial/
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