Jabbar Company: The eBay of the Arab World Souq.com Launches To The Egyptian Market

Update:

Souq.com is like eBay (online auction website) for the Arab world and one of Jabbar group of companies which used to be called Maktoob Group before Yahoo’s acquisition of Maktoob which my sources say was 200 million USD.

Souq.com  just launched yesterday its Egyptian version in both Arabic and English, tapping into more than 9 million Internet users in a country of about 80 million people. with this addition souq.com which started in 2005, the online auction site increases the number of countries ti has full operations in to 4 following UAE, Saudi Arabia and Jordan.

Now egyptians from individuals to small and mid size companies has an opportunity to buy and sell online, already there are a number of listing on the site.

I am not really sure about the payment and delivery method Souq.com is using in its Egyptian operations, but it looks a combination of CashU ( Jabbar’s’ e-payment card company) and credit cards plus a partnership with Aramex.

Update:

According to Ronaldo Mouchawar General Director of Souq.com originally from Syria, who kinldy answered our email:

“Currently in Egypt , UAE and Jordan, Souq.com we accept :
* Credit cards

* CashU card

* Bank transfers

* And we do COD deliveries with Aramex.

“One correction is that souq is not any more an auction site, we are a Marketplace, we support many formats (auction, fixed price and Classifieds for the Real Estate and motor vertical), The most popular is the Fixed Priced (Buy Now) and most of the items sold are new.

After the sale the funds are transferred to the seller’s bank accounts (not cashU as you have copied from the Jordan site)”

Here is a quick link on basics of selling:
http://www.souq.com/landing_sell.php?how_to_sell=1

We are adding few custom and payment methods per countries as well..”

However until I get confirmations here is what we wrote before about Souq.com’s payment method in Jordan:

“The auction website local version for Jordan has different payment methods: cashU (a prepaid payment card also from Jabbar), Cheque or Cash, Cash on Delivery (COD) service in cooperation with Aramex.
The delivery can be done via Aramex or the buyer has to go to the seller’s location to pay in cash and collect the item/s.
The payment method that is called Cash on Delivery (COD) from Aramex, goes like this: Aramex collects the item from the seller and delivers it to the buyer. The Buyer pays in cash the item’s price plus delivery fees. And then Aramex sends the money to Souq.com which in turn deducts its transaction fees of around 5%, Souq.com releases the funds 15 days after delivery or once the buyer rates the seller positively. Souq will deposit the funds into the seller cashU account. If the seller does not have a cashU account, one will be created for him/her and fund deposited automatically. Deliveries of less than 5 kilometers are free of charge.”