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No-cost shipping and fast websites are key to luring in younger shoppers from the Kingdom and UAE, a survey (pdf) by Tabby Business showed yesterday. The research surveyed 7.5k shoppers from a range of age groups in the Kingdom and UAE, with the majority of the respondents from Saudi.
No-cost shipping > everything else: The survey determined that 29% of Saudi shoppers (and 23% in the UAE) express frustration when retailers don’t provide shipping at no cost.
They also don’t want to pick one form of shopping over the other: Tabby reports that 36% of Saudi shoppers (32% in the UAE) prefer a mix of online and offline shopping. “The data shows that in-store and online retail should work together to give the shopper the best experience possible,” Tabby said, advising retailers to stop viewing brick-and-mortar stores as standing on opposition to online sales.
Faster websites should be the norm: Younger shoppers “expect” fast websites when shopping online, with the survey estimating folks 18-29 pace a premium on speed.
Loyalty programs? What loyalty programs? The marketing strategy does little to nothing to drive repeat purchases by Saudi and Emirati shoppers, with only 7.7% of respondents considering a loyalty scheme as a reason to return. “The key drivers of repeat business are a positive shopping experience and a quality product,” the survey said.
How Tabby sees itself in trends: The homegrown BNPL platform, which is one of the region’s first fintech unicorns, expects 30% of shoppers in the Kingdom and the UAE to be using its flexible payment solutions when making purchases. The projections are up from 22.5% in both nations. “The use of flexible payments has become commonplace in the Middle East, with 1 in 4 shoppers already using Tabby,” it said. “We see this trend continuing in 2024 as more shoppers use flexible payments on a larger range of their purchases,” it added.
