E-commerce is no longer an alien term. Since the advent of global e-commerce giants like Amazon, Ali Baba etc., online shopping has been widely accepted and acclaimed as a highly viable business model by businesses and consumers across the world.

Dubai has always been in the forefront of online shopping and ecommerce business in UAE. The growth rate has been remarkable so far and it tends to remain the same in the future. We have figures that speak of a major shift from traditional shopping to online shopping.

We would like to walk you through a few prominent details that would come in needy when you set up your own ecommerce business in Dubai, UAE.

• Online Shopping Trends in UAE

Online shopping in UAE has shown a steady growth over the past decade. People shopping online has grown a liking towards local UAE based websites more than foreign websites. The potential of local websites is huge although they do face tough competition from global players. Projection shows steep increase in ecommerce in Dubai to follow.

• Licensing

First you ought to choose if you want to start your online business in free zone or non-free zone. When you operate from a free zone you have the following advantages:

– 0% income tax.

-0% corporate tax.

-100% repatriation of business profits

-100% complete business ownership

-negligible custom duties.

These advantages makes it easy to set up your ecommerce business in Dubai. There are quite a few free zones in Dubai, which you may choose based upon your ecommerce business type. Licensing procedures vest upon the freezone authority where you intend to register.

If you are not likely to opt in a free zone, licensing procedure will have to be done with the Department of Economic development (DED).

• Office/Infrastructure

It is always good for your business to have a physical address. Moreover your business would be considered legal in Dubai only if you have a physical address.

• Website Development And Domain Hosting

An extremely stable and user-friendly website obviously is the most integral part of your ecommerce business. It not only should have a pleasing user interface but it should also be easy to use.

To start with you will have to choose a domain for your website and register it. Your domain name should represent your company and it would usually be the name that you will use to register your company. Make sure that the domain name is unique and should easily relate to your business.

• Payment Gateway Integration

Looking to sell products online? It goes without saying that you need to set a secure payment gateway, which includes credit card payment, cash on delivery and pre-paid card systems such as PayPal.

• Import/Export Procedure

If you are importing products from outside UAE and are looking to sell them in UAE market, your business needs to be registered the relevant emirate’s ports and customs authority. You will then receive your importer’s code. There is a customs duty applicable to the imported goods which usually comes around 5%. Businesses in free zone are exempted from customs duty if they sell their products within the free zone or outside UAE. Selling their products outside free zone will require them to pay customs duty and a local commercial agent must be appointed.

• Marketing

All set and you are ready to launch your product. Now what? No product has ever been sold without marketing. Marketing has always been the deciding factor in the success of any business. You can either do an email blast, texts or do targeted marketing via social media/whatsapp or cold calling by acquiring database of your niche market. We at Database4Business (https://database4business.com/) own millions of updated, extensive and verified database of Dubai, UAE which can be used for target marketing.

Database4Business owns carefully handpicked database in 100s of categories that we have acquired through years of experience in the field. If you are looking to kick-start your marketing campaigns, contact us right now. Write to us at sales@database4business.com