SOUQ.com White Friday 2016 is a record-breaking milestone in the Middle East e-commerce industry

SOUQ.com, the largest online retail and marketplace platform in the Middle East, announces that White Friday this year doubled last year’s sales with 1.2 million items sold between 23 and 26 November across the GCC and Egypt. SOUQ.com also confirmed five times more new buyers everyday on the platform with a sales conversion rate at twice the daily average.  Further, 75% of the sales came from the fashion and lifestyle categories, while electronics accounted for 25% of the sales. White Friday 2016 also saw a phenomenal 60k units sold from the newly launched ‘SOUQ Superstore’ - with many FMCG brands selling out within hours – far surpassing expectation, highlighting the trend towards online grocery shopping trend.

The biggest online shopping extravaganza in the region saw four items sold per second with 10 times more traffic and sales than the daily average on the website as well as the app. Mobile commerce continued to be a huge driver for growth, with over 50% of the sales coming from the mobile app. White Friday 2016 saw a remarkable upsurge in credit card payments at 37%, highlighting the rising trend and consumer shift to online payments.

Ronaldo Mouchawar, Co-Founder & CEO, SOUQ.com commented, “White Friday 2016 marks another record-breaking milestone for the e-commerce in the region. Our robust technical backend preparation ensured that despite 10 times more traffic and concurrent users on web as well as the app, our users continued to enjoy seamless online shopping experience. We are particularly proud of the impressive response to our newly launched groceries category ‘SOUQ Superstore’ and our fashion offerings- with most of the new fashion brands being sold out in no time.”

Mouchawar added, “This year, we had a record number of new buyers on SOUQ.com, a clear indicator that we continue to lead the e-commerce growth in the region with innovative campaigns such as White Friday. In line with our promise, we are on track with the speedy delivery of the huge volume of orders. We focus on the value we bring to our consumers and the remarkable number of repeat buyers we have on the platform with a significant order value is a testament to the increasing trust we have built around the e-commerce ecosystem.”

More than 1,500 of the world’s leading brands and companies sold their products at unbeatable prices and offered special deals during White Friday 2016 led by partners such as Unilever, Samsung, Mars, P&G, RB, PepsiCo, Hisense, Lenovo, Philips, Kenwood, Redbull, Johnson & Johnson, Henkel, One Plus, Xiaomi, Nivea, Nestle, Moulinex, Sun & Sand Sports, Futtaim Group, Apparel Group, Hokair Group, Landmark Group, Intel, Microsoft, and Redington.