Zbooni, MENA’s leading cCommerce platform, has announced its official launch in Egypt. The rapidly scaling start-up, which is backed by regional and global investors, will support the backbone of the Egyptian economy by providing digital commerce tools for the estimated 3.5 million small to medium size enterprises (SMEs) across the country.
‘cCommerce’, (connected commerce) enables businesses to sell more through popular chat apps, like WhatsApp and Telegram. Businesses can convert conversations into transactions through sharing of real-time shopping baskets and payment links. With more than 50 million social media users in Egypt, Zbooni provides an opportunity for businesses across the country to capture orders, accept payments, and sell more, while tracking everything. The average cCommerce cart is 2.7 times bigger than traditional eCommerce and conversion rates are 20 times higher than eCommerce.
Ashraf Atia, co-founder and COO of Zbooni said, “We’re excited to launch in Egypt and pioneer cCommerce with inspiring Egyptian entrepreneurs and businesses. As an Egyptian-American who has lived and worked across the region, it’s humbling to be able to bring new tech solutions to my home country. With the help of our key partner JumiaPay and National Bank of Egypt, we expect to support thousands of Egyptian businesses to sell more with Zbooni in 2022.”
Zbooni’s launch in Egypt signals continued growth for the company which has previously opened regional offices in United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Jordan, and currently serves a merchant base of more than 6,000 businesses. In September 2021, Zbooni completed a $9.5mn Series A funding round to fast-track its expansion across the region, develop new products and hire key new team members.
In December 2021, Zbooni signed a payment partnership with JumiaPay, Egypt’s rapidly growing payments platform which is a part of major e-commerce company Jumia Group. The agreement enables payments across Zbooni’s cCommerce platform through JumiaPay’s payment gateway. It will allow businesses across Egypt to benefit from using Zbooni’s proprietary cCommerce tools to interact and engage with customers, with the safety and security of transactions being processed through JumiaPay.
Advantages of cCommerce include being able to do business through popular chat and social apps with no need for the customer to download any additional apps or build their own website eCommerce carts. It simplifies purchasing and enables quicker, mobile-first transactions which are also entirely secure as the business is PCI DSS (payment card industry data security standard) compliant. Zbooni uses advanced machine learning and AI (artificial intelligence) tools to protect merchants and customers, ensuring robust KYC (‘know your customer’), AML (anti-money laundering), and fraud prevention via World-Check.