E-commerce to triple,
facilitated by e-payment

300,000 online transactions posted last year

Demand on e-commerce platforms is set to triple in one year, according to a study published in the March issue of Lebanon Opportunities.

Investors are seeing large potential in e-commerce platforms, and consider it the best time to invest. “It is the era of online channeling, and if investors don’t jump into this, they will lose massive opportunities,” said George Azar, CEO of Hicart, a local e-commerce platform.

According to Areeba, a payment solutions provider, almost 300,000 people used their payment cards for e-commerce online transactions last year. “This represents 13 percent of the total number of card users. This is a large percentage,” said Ramzi Saboury, Chief Commercial Officer at Areeba.

Fifteen million visitors browsed Hicart’s web pages in 2018, according to Azar.

A variety of factors are driving the growth of e-commerce. “It is providing a new customer experience in a more convenient way,” Azar said. Customers are exposed to millions of different items and categories, and can find latest innovations and new products on e-commerce platforms.

The increase in payment card penetration and solutions that are facilitating online payments are contributing to the growth of e-commerce, according to Saboury. “There is room for additional growth in card penetration, especially outside the capital, and this will drive the growth in e-commerce,” Azar said.