Six months after elevating $5.2 million from traders, Dukkantek co-founder Sanad Yaghi is in celebratory temper. The UAE-based industry, which describes itself as a shop control platform, had anticipated to take a yr to finish its pre-fundraising plan to amplify into six new markets; actually, it’s been in a position to make the transition in not up to part that point.
“Our expansion is testomony to our efforts in empowering conventional traders to thrive in a virtual global with top class end-to-end generation,” Yaghi says. “For too lengthy, the homeowners of small and medium-sized companies had been left at the margins of the generation shift; now we’re serving their unmet wishes.”
Dukkantek’s target audience is the 13 million or so small and medium-sized shops who perform in seven international locations: the UAE, Oman, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Turkey and Saudi Arabia. It gives a virtual platform that permits those shops to run their bricks and mortar retail outlets extra successfully and productively – and, crucially, to take the plunge into ecommerce.
“We convey a generation platform consisting of 3 other price propositions that permit those traders to compete in a virtual global,” Yaghi explains.
Price proposition one is a collection of gear that permits traders to run their companies extra successfully. That incorporates the whole thing from stock control capability to make stronger inventory monitoring and organisation to a point-of-sales gadget to analyse efficiency and generate experiences.
The second one strand to the platform is fortify for bills, making sure traders can be offering consumers extra selection about learn how to settle their expenses. Dukkantek’s platform helps consumers who pay thru choices together with money, card bills or on credit score.
3rd – and possibly maximum necessary of all – is the platform’s e-commerce providing. It provides traders the whole thing they wish to get started promoting on-line for the primary time – and to regulate that operation in tandem with the bricks and mortar industry. For instance, many traders battle to stay observe of stock when promoting each on-line and in bodily retail outlets, so having one gadget that accommodates each portions of the industry is essential.
Dukkantek’s founders consider shops want extra virtual fortify
Dukkantek
Having introduced the industry in January 2021, Yaghi and his co-founders have observed it develop temporarily. As of late, some 7,000 traders have signed as much as the platform. And whilst Dukkantek used to be initially conceived as a provider geared toward shops within the grocery sector, the traders at the platform now span 70 other verticals, with clothes and electricals specifically distinguished along food and drinks.
The will for traders within the area to embody ecommerce has been a specifically necessary expansion motive force, Yaghi says. “Ecommerce has grown in ever a part of the arena, however the shift on-line within the Center East used to be a lot more unexpected, speeded up by way of externalities such because the Covid-19 pandemic,” he says. “Smaller traders struggled with that as a result of there used to be no longer the infrastructure in position they wanted.”
The area’s smaller companies surely don’t need to chance lacking out. Analysis compiled by way of EZDubai and Euromonitor forecasts that the ecommerce marketplace around the Center East and North Africa will likely be price $49bn by way of 2025, a 55% build up at the ranges observed in 2021.
Such expansion explains why ecommerce capability is such a very powerful a part of the attraction of Dukkantek. Whilst the platform thinks its applied sciences will upload price throughout each and every a part of the store’s industry – Yaghi issues to analytics gear that lend a hand traders perceive which merchandise will promote best possible, for instance – the chance to amplify on-line is especially important. 3-quarters of the companies at the platform at the moment are buying and selling on this manner.
As for Dukkantek itself, its expansion is constructed totally on a software-as-a-service (Sass) fashion. It fees a flat charge of $400 a yr for companies who enroll to make use of the platform. Additional revenues come from the commissions that the industry earns thru its cost gateways.
Having met its geographical enlargement objectives – despite the fact that additional launches into North Africa are into account – Dukkantek’s instant focal point is now on including new services and products. Particularly, Yaghi is eager to discover running capital answers. Many traders are prepared to amplify the collection of retail outlets they perform, he explains, however held again by way of the loss of finance to be had within the area.
