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Satyendra Pathak
Doha
The e-commerce market in Qatar is poised to more than double from the current $1.28 billion to $3.2 billion by 2020, a senior official of the Ministry of Transport and Communications (MoTC) has said.
Moayed Siddiq, industry expert of e-commerce at MOTC, told Qatar Tribune that Qatar's online business-to-customer (B2C) market is expected to grow at a compound annual rate of 17 percent over the next four years.
Qatar has the highest average annual e-commerce spend per user in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, the official said, adding that the average value per online transaction in Qatar is higher than the GCC average.
The official, however, said that Qatar is yet to achieve its full potential in e-commerce given one of the highest internet penetration and spending power in the country.
Siddiq said the ministry has taken various initiatives like legal governance, enabling e-payments, enhancing delivery mechanism, stimulating consumer adoption, empowering merchants and strengthening the e-commerce ecosystem to increase the percentage of people shopping online in Qatar.
He said that Q-Post has also played a vital role in promoting e-commerce in Qatar by introducing its Connected service.
Out of the total shopping done online from Qatar, the official said, 67 percent of the products and services are sourced from foreign countries.
The official said the ministry has launched a new initiative to trustmark online shopping websites in Qatar to popularise local products and services on e-commerce platforms.
The trustmark initiative has been launched to instill trust in Qatari consumers, the official adding the initiative has paid off well.
"A number of local products and services like airline tickets, hotel bookings, cleaning, ready to eat food, abayas for women and others are being ordered and delivered online," he said.
Initiatives are also being taken to introduce door-to-door delivery of groceries ordered online, the official said, adding that the concept will be launched as soon as the delivery mechanism of such products is finalised.
