Retail giant Amazon says advanced logistics and investment into its local delivery partners helped power its debut in this year’s White Friday sale event in the UAE.
White Friday is the UAE’s leading online shopping event that started in 2014 and is now in its sixth year. The Amazon.ae business, which the US giant has built on top of its predecessor Souq.com, entered the important selling event tempting buyers with fast, free and convenient delivery options.
This is a result of enhanced logistics and significant investments in resources that Amazon has developed over the past two years across the region, claimed the company. The sixth edition of the White Friday Sale took place between 23rd-29th November and offered thousands of deals on a huge variety of products. Prime members were able to enjoy early 12 hours of exclusive early access starting at noon on Friday, 22nd November.
“At Amazon, we spend every day obsessing how we can make customers’ lives better, easier and ultimately, more fun,” said Ronaldo Mouchawar, VP, Amazon MENA. “White Friday is a great testament to how we bring customer obsession to life in the region. Starting from bringing the best brands at the best deals all the way to a seamless and swift delivery to the customer’s doorstep.”
Amazon in the UAE fulfills customer orders from DXB3, the biggest fulfillment center in the UAE. Spread over a 23,000 square meter facility located in Dubai South, DXB3 was announced in 2018 and employs more than 800 staff to ensure that the growing demand during the end-of-year season was met.
In recent years, Amazon has moved towards delivery of packages through Amazon own last mile team or through local courier companies called Delivery Partners that help increase flexibility and ship things faster to ultimately benefit the customer. This in turn creates multiple employment and growth opportunities for local couriers in the UAE.
“Fulfillment by Amazon enables selling partners to have their own Amazon store and ship their products directly to customers, while offering them bespoke services such as Amazon Prime, a paid subscription service which offers users access to exclusive services, Cash on Delivery, Next-Day Delivery, and Friday delivery (home delivery). Fulfillment by Amazon also provides customer service and manages returns on behalf of the selling partners, who are offered the option to choose the number of products they want to have fulfilled by Amazon and scale according to their business requirements,” said Amazon.
Prashant Saran, Director of Operations for Amazon MENA, said Amazon is continuously finding ways to improve the customer experience during these landmark events in order to fulfill its mission of being the Earth’s most customer centric company.
“This year we will offer the best products at unbeatable prices, all supported by advanced logistics and investments in our fulfillment centers. The increased fulfillment capacity also benefits our selling partners – thousands of small and medium businesses – to scale up their business on our website,” he said.