Indian retail firm signs partnership deals to boost Gulf e-commerce drive

Dabur inks deals with mother and baby online stores Mumzworld, Sprii and Babyshop, also seeking expansion in Iraq, Palestine, Syria and Yemen

India-based FMCG major has struck partnership deals with leading mother and baby online stores Mumzworld, Sprii and Babyshop in a move to drive its e-commerce business in the Middle East.

Dabur International, the Dubai-based arm of the Indian consumer products major, has also finalised agreements with supermarket majors Carrefour Online and Rafeeq recently to aggressively expand its footprint in the digital marketplace.

“We are currently scouting for opportunities to expand our ‘direct-to-consumers or D2C’ sales segment and have finalised partnership arrangements with some of the leading online marketplaces in the mom's and babies' products as also the online supermarkets such as Mumzworld, Sprii, Babyshop, Carrefour Online and Rafeeq,” Krishan Kumar Chutani, CEO of Dabur International, told Arabian Business.

“We already enjoy preferred partner status with giants like Amazon and Noon and with these deals, we expect to expand this status further to some of the niche product category segments as well,” Chutani added.

Chutani also revealed that Dabur is currently working on plans to expand its reach in markets such as Iraq, Palestine, Syria and Yemen through partnership arrangements with online platforms such as Miswag, Pelemall, Matrix App and Emahallat.

Mumzworld and Sprii are exclusive online stores for a wide range of products meant for mothers and babies, while Babyshop is a one stop shop for infants and kids.

Carrefour Online is an online supermarket for groceries, gadgets and home appliances, while Rafeeq is Oman’s largest online platform for groceries.

Chutani said the company’s e-commerce grew by 700 percent in terms of value and more than 20 times in terms of reach in a span of just five months to September compared to the last full year.

“We want to scale up our e-commerce footprint with reaching more countries, partnering with more players in a country and increasing our portfolio presence in each country,” he revealed.

“We currently have more than 250 SKUs (stock keeping units) listed in 50 plus pure play and Brick & Click players across 13 markets in MENA and over 25 countries globally,” Chutani said.

“These online tie-ups have helped us to increase our e-commerce contribution from 0.5 percent to 2 percent globally and, in some countries like Saudi Arabia even up to 3.5 percent of the total retail sales,” he added.

Lulu webstore, Talabat, Instashop, El Grocer, Nahdi, Panda, Dawaa, Feel22, Taw9eel are also partners with Dabur International.