MENA ecommerce review within retail

1. A case study by Mohammed Sajjad Bhojani
3rd March 2013
“Al Shaya, online and digital”

2. 70 brands, 2,400 outlets – Al
Shaya is a retail phenomenon
International retail franchise operator
Founded 1980
Operates in MENA, Russia and EU
32,000 employees, $2billion turnover

3. Retail continues to flourish in ROW,
but internet is now part of the
retail landscape

4. Pure plays start the eCommerce revolution
& innovate where traditional retail has not
moved fast enough
Circa 2m member mark. MENA roll out
3m uniques per month
Trading in 6 Gulf
markets
Secured $20m in
funding

5. $1m turnover in 10 months –
www.jadopado.com

6. Online shopping (2012 )
worth $2bn in UAE
Online sales in
Egypt up 150%
Iran up 80%

7. Region is connected 24/7

9. Connected customers
consume content

10. Mobile is ecommerce

11. Fear of credit card security
starts to decline

12. Amazon et al fall foul of
logistics, clearing & no COD

13. Aramex changes ecommerce with
COD. Online sellers see 70-80% via
COD (low margin, high returns)

14. Last mile continues to
challenge MENA just as in
more mature markets

16. Al Shaya select Magento
platform for ecommerce

17. Mothercare.KW goes live
March 2012
Not yet global/local and needs an
Arabic version asap
Suffers from duplicate content with
.com site

18. La Senza acquisition sees new web
site released in 2012
New site is key part of La Senza re-launch in
UK offering a national shop window

19. First phase Body shop live in Dubai, next
step transactional???? Turkey? Russia?

20. Al Shaya sites suffer low volume of
traffic, lacking digital plans & execution

21. Evidence of digital marketing exists
with La Senza’s affiliate programme

22. Competitors leveraging large volume of
ebay traffic (18m million visits per week)

23. PPC activity or lack of is a concern.
Competitors bidding on brand name
Customer searches on la Senza
Figleaves and
Ann Summers
are picking off
brand loyal,
returning and
high ROI
customers

24. SEO rankings are poor vs competitors.
Current approach lacking.
Customer enters Sleep wear
ASOS and Next
rank for “Sleep
Wear”

25. Large generic traffic keywords owned
by competitors
Customer enters Lingerie
La Senza
rankings not
visible.
Urgent SEM
strategy
needed with
investment

26. SEO KPI analysis identifies poor La
Senza performance within market
La Senza BHS Selfridges
Page
Authority
58 64 79
Page Moz
Rank
5.18 5.69 6.16
Page Moz
Trust
5.72 5.84 6.1
External
followed links
2,988 10,152 34,998

27. Recent changes have impacted Google
shopping – this is no longer free but is
a large traffic driver
No presence for La Senza within
Google Shopping
Suggests inactive feed or new PLA
ads not set up with a CPC
investment

28. Al Shaya SEO approach is questionable–
Mothercare.KW Meta data requires rework
Keyword selection does not appear to be
researched or chosen based on keyword
volume – why would you target the keyword
“Drive” “Combination”?

29. Page titles and meta data are core SEO
components – site is not optimised
Page title only contains Car Seats this should be
supplemented with target keywords eg Isofix, childrens car
seat etc based on a keyword plan
How many Al Shaya sites have a keyword plan?

30. Page source analysis shows meta data on car
seats page is not page specific and loaded with
same keywords from home page...
Within the car seat category the
content and keywords should be
car seat related

31. Significant opportunity online for Al Shaya
across all markets
Needs to up-weight multi language roll out and
deliver high volume of sites rapidly
Digital Marketing strategy needed to ensure cost
effective/efficient traffic generation across all
sites and markets
Short term priority with la Senza to drive web
contribution and web sales with Traffic plan

32. SWOT
Strengths Weaknesses
Opportunities Threats
Retail experience
Cost effective platform (Magento)
2 Trading sites live (LaSenza/Mothercare)
Experienced management team
Al Shaya investment/resources
Strong brands & recognition
Trusted brands
Local language (Mothercare)
Stock/Merchandising (Mothercare)
Pace – roll out of multi lingual sites
Digital Marketing
Lack of mobile (LaSenza/Mothercare)
Analytics
Trading & Merchandising
Digital Marketing strategy
Non Branded SEO
eCRM
Retargeting
Social Media (LaSenza/MENA)PPC
Conversion via platform enhancement
Mobile – multi platform & multi channel
Get logistics and customer service right
In Store POS
Local pure plays getting it right
More nimble competitors with quicker pace of
development
Customer adoption (slow)
Customer fears ref credit card usage online