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The Holy Month of Ramadan, deeply rooted in cultural and spiritual traditions, brings about one of the biggest shopping moments in the Middle East. How big? In 2024, online shoppers are predicted to spend as much as US$39 billion during Ramadan.[1]
Keeping that figure in mind, no business is too small for growing customer love during major events like Ramadan and Eid al-Fitr. But how exactly do you make the most out of this period?
Enter Amazon.
Amazon plays a pivotal role in the Ramadan shopping experience. In the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), a significant percentage of Amazon audiences plan to host, cook, and gift, with a notable 85% of UAE and 82% of KSA shoppers finding that shopping on Amazon allows them more leisure time during Iftar preparations. The shopping momentum continues into Eid, where shoppers are likely to purchase items -like new clothes and gifts- for the celebrations. [2]
Now, no matter the size of your business, once you have a presence on Amazon, there are different ways you can grow your business by advertising. According to a survey, over 75% of customers in the UAE and KSA were very or somewhat likely to make a purchase based on the ads they saw on Amazon, and 64% would repurchase a product on the Amazon store even if it’s not on deal post-Ramadan. [3]
With Amazon Ads solutions, you can engage bigger audiences in the MENA or beyond to help them become more familiar with your brand and products. You can also connect with shoppers actively looking to make a purchase, or with existing customers to encourage repeat purchases.
But don’t let the words “digital advertising” scare you. For example, here’s how RunBazaar -a family-owned small business- grew its reach in the UAE with the help of Amazon Ads.
RunBazaar is a family-owned consumer electronics company founded in 1999 in Dubai. “It’s not easy to start and grow a business,” says Jasem Moradi, Regional Sales Manager at RunBazaar. “Even if you have a great product, getting the word out, and reaching customers can be challenging.”
Selling on the Amazon store since 2019, the brand was amongst the many small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) who started using Amazon Ads when it launched in the UAE in 2020. Moradi remembers the team took the first few initial months familiarizing themselves with the tools and different advertising options. As the brand built knowledge on how best to advertise, they saw growth in sales, conversion rates, and brand awareness. “After using advertising, we did surveys, and we saw that we had increased our brand awareness,” Moradi notes.
But it’s not just RunBazaar- here’s another example where a KSA-based SMB was able to increase its sales by 250% with the help of Amazon Ads.
In House is a furniture company that has grown from having a single small store in a Riyadh shopping mall to running 15 showrooms across Saudi Arabia. Abdullah Al-Haddad, Head of E-Commerce at the brand, attributed the company’s success at growing the number of loyal customers to their use of Amazon Ads solutions. “Results take time, but developing trust between the brand and customers is essential to increasing return on ad spend and building customer loyalty,” Al-Haddad explains.
Using Amazon Ads solutions for the first time in 2020, In House gradually built knowledge on how best to use the solutions for their business. The brand found useful information available through Amazon Ads resources, such as Seller University and the Amazon Ads collection of webinars.
In Q1 2023, which covered the beginning of Ramadan, the brand’s Amazon sales increased by 250%, compared to the same period in 2022. [4]
Getting started with Amazon Ads
With Amazon Ads, you can start small. The first step in building a brand presence on Amazon is to give your brand a dedicated home with Brand Stores. Think of it as a way of creating your very own digital shop window- for free.
If you’re looking to generate further virtual buzz outside your shop window during and even after Ramadan, Amazon Ads solutions like Sponsored Products can help. Last year, Amazon sellers in the MENA region who advertised in the Amazon store during Ramadan saw an increase in sales using Sponsored Products, when compared to the average category growth by 37 percentage points in the UAE, 38 percentage points in the KSA, and 32 percentage points in Egypt, respectively.[5]
Become an Amazon seller today, or explore Amazon Ads for everything you need to know about our advertising solutions.
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Footnotes
[1] Orienteed, Ecommerce in the Middle East: Statistics and Trends, ME, 2023
[2] Amazon and Kantar, Understanding Ramadan Shoppers, MENAT, 2023
[3] Amazon and Kantar Understanding Ramadan Shoppers in MENAT 2023, A18+
[4] Advertiser-provided data, KSA, 2022–2023. Results are reflective of campaigns for one advertiser, Runbazaar, and are not indicative of future outcomes.
[5] Amazon internal data, AE/SA/EG, Feb 26 –Apr 22, 2023.
*Increase calculated as (growth of ASINs on Sponsored Products ads during Ramadan as compared to same time period before) – (average growth of categories during the Ramadan as compared to same time period before).
Only sellers who spent at least $1 on advertising during Ramadan in AE/SA/EG were considered as a part of the analysis.
This article is from Entrepreneur.com
