MENA cCommerce Platform Zbooni Expands to Egypt

Connected commerce platform Zbooni has brought its services to Egypt, where the company said it will provide digital commerce tools to the 33.5 million small- to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) in the North African nation, according to a Wednesday (Feb. 16) press release.

Connected commerce — or “cCommerce” — lets businesses sell products using social media apps. Zbooni said its platform will let businesses in Egypt target the country’s more than 50 million social media users, helping them capture orders, take payments and track their progress. The Dubai-based Zbooni claims the average cCommerce cart is 2.7 times larger than traditional eCommerce, while conversion rates are 20 times greater.

Zbooni’s new Cairo office follows regional operations in United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Jordan, which serve more than 6,000 businesses. In September 2021, Zbooni closed a $9.5 million Series A funding round to fund its expansion in the Middle East/North African region (MENA), develop new products and hire new team members.

“As an Egyptian-American who has lived and worked across the region, it’s humbling to be able to bring new tech solutions to my home country,” said Ashraf Atia, Zbooni’s co-founder and COO. “With the help of our key partner JumiaPay and National Bank of Egypt, we expect to support thousands of Egyptian businesses to sell more with Zbooni in 2022.”

The JumiaPay partnership was signed last year, allowing for payments across Zbooni’s platform using Jumia Technologies’ payment gateway.

Read more: Jumia On Africa’s Great eCommerce Shift — Toward ‘Everyday Items’

PYMNTS spoke last year with Sami Louali, executive vice president of Financial Services at Jumia Technologies, about how the pandemic has led to a rise in eCommerce in Africa, with people becoming increasingly used to going online to purchase everyday staples.

For JumiaPay, that meant an increase in transactions, but a slight decline in typical transaction sizes, as people shifted to making purchases to meet their daily needs instead of making bigger purchases on things like electronics.