Can Egyptian e-Commerce be as Successful as the US and UK?

Being the biggest fan and best customer of Egyptian e-commerce, I can’t tell you how thrilled I am that it’s is finally starting to take off. But kids, we still have a ways to go before we can truly call ourselves a “leading” e-commerce nation.

Our Dependence on American-based e-tailers

Our love of everything American creates a demand to shop on American-owned-and-managed sites. But many American-based e-tailers simply refuse to accommodate Egyptian customers because they don’t wanting to deal with duty, shipping and other nasty fulfillment issues. The result is unfortunate: Egyptians are being put off of e-commerce because of negative reinforcement and limitations by U.S. sites.

Case in Point: www.gap.com and www.oldnavy.com sites simply refuse to ship to Egypt. A friend of mine who works at the Egyptian Gap office told me that Gap Egypt’s management has been trying to get their California-based Head Office to consider a “dot eg” or just let Egyptians buy off the main site. After much deliberation, the U.S. management decided against selling to Egyptians over the internet, because we are not a lucrative e-commerce market. They’re kind of right – but their attitude is also leading to a vicious circle. You can’t create a lucrative e-commerce market by consistently pissing off Egyptian e-consumers.

I encountered a similar situation when I tried to buy a special “toddler floaty” swimsuit for my son off the Speedo website. I landed on the Speedo splash page (pardon the pun) and chose Egypt. I was impressed to see a fully functional shopping cart in the Egyptian site. But, on checkout, the Speedo site refused to take my order and I was left feeling like a second-class citizen (and I was choked I could not get this specialty-suit for my kid). Speedo faked me out and I am now checking out other brands – I even (gasp) had to go to the mall!

Changing Customer Behavior

The media certainly isn’t helping when they broadcast news stories about internet fraud and identity theft. Sure, we need to stay one step ahead of the cyber-criminals but the media has the Egyptian public absolutely terrified to use their credit cards on a website (when in reality, dumpster-diving is the main cause of identity theft).

In addition to fear of identity theft, over 40% of the Egyptian public is of the Baby Boomer generation. This group has begun to embrace e-commerce, but they’re coming into their retirement with a “living on a strict budget in case I live to 100” mindset. In light of this, what group should a new e-tailer target to get good sales?

I think I am one of those rare people who use e-commerce in my daily life – I wouldn’t survive without it. A few of you probably use it a lot too. But the average Egyptian does not – they prefer to do it “old school”. Yet, Americans and Brits have no trouble using online shopping. So what is our general hang-up? We need to head-off consumer fears and fix broken consumer perceptions if we’re going to be an e-commerce nation. So how do we go about doing that?

Where Do We Go From Here?

Remember when the media has us convinced that e-commerce was going to cause shopping malls to be ghost-towns? We would do all of our shopping online! Our commute to the office would be the 10 paces to our home computer! All of our shopping would be done in our PJ’s! All from the comfort of our homes! That was ten years ago – and we’re nowhere near that yet. Will we ever be?

So, I guess I’m ending this post with more questions than closure. Is there something we, as the industry experts, can do to “push” the industry? Can we lobby the government to make e-commerce easier for consumers? Do we campaign to U.S.-based sites to include Egyptians into their trading area? Should we have a meeting or conference on this?

What do you think?