Football e-commerce store launches in Dubai to offer fans more niche apparel
It's not hard to see a Barca jersey almost
anywhere in the Arab world these days. But when it comes to finding
more obscure jerseys, the process of ordering from abroad can be
difficult.
“At some point, I was looking to find a jersey for the Greek
national team, but I couldn’t find it in the store, so I ordered it
online,” says Yorgos Kleivokiotis, a Greek entrepreneur based in
Dubai. After ordering it online from a store in the UK, he waited
weeks before finding out that it was stuck in Emirati customs. The
jersey was then sent back to the UK and a new one was resent to his
home. It turned out to be the wrong size, but was too expensive to
return.
To solve the problem, Kleivokiotis
launched KooraBazar, the GCC’s first football-only e-commerce
store. Designed to satisfy the region's football fanatics, the
store sells everything from name brand equipment to apparel,
custom jerseys, shoes, and autographed merchandise.
Exclusivity is hard to come by, but a trade license grants the
startup access to brands that could be difficult to access
otherwise. “We have a lot of products that are more difficult to
find than anywhere else, but in this market there is no
exclusivity,” Kleivokiotis admits. “For example, Nike has certain
lines that are only available for category specialists,” adds
cofounder Ghazi Ben Amor. While they are available worldwide, only
certain registered suppliers, like KooraBazar, are allowed to sell
them.
The startup is targeting three segments: those who play football
and need training equipment and apparel, fans that collect
merchandise and memorabilia, and those looking to buy custom
apparel. For corporate, school, or university teams, the site
offers custom jersey printing, which can by ordered via telephone
and paid for online. It also offers cash on delivery (COD),
credit card, and PayPal as payment options.
Although they are focused heavily on the GCC, international
consumers make up a good chunk of their business. As the official
supplier of products from the Emirati football team Al Ahly, the
startup often sees fans in the diaspora ordering the jerseys of
their favorite players- or those who are traded from a European
team to the GCC.
"Don't rush in because it's fashionable"
The story of how Kleivokiotis and Ben Amor started the company might sound familiar to many; both began working as consultants and trying their hand at several startups in Dubai after they graduated from INSEAD business school in 2006. Last year, tired of working for other people, they decided to launch their own idea.
“We started working on this around the end of last summer and spent time doing research, building the website, identifying suppliers and getting the trade license, which was not an easy task. And then eventually we went live and started selling,” says Kleivokiotis.
Their story may sound somewhat typical, but that doesn't mean it's been easy. “I would advise someone to wait for the right time, not to rush in to it because it’s fashionable to work on a startup. Usually setting up a company takes much longer and costs a lot more than you initially think,” says Kleivokiotis. “Everyone needs to wait for the right time before they get into it.”
But it's still early days at KooraBazar. “If we count the mannequin that we use for the pictures, we have four team members,” jokes Ben Amor.
After raising money from family, friends, and now some larger investors, the company is still bootstrapping. “We’re still trying to be very lean at this stage,” says Kleivokiotis.
Advice for starting in Dubai
After living in Dubai for seven years, the cofounders find some particular benefits to starting a business there; as a regional node, Dubai is an easy location to ship from and offers a huge pool of talent and partners.
However, finding a local partner is a
challenge, notes Kleivokiotis. “The fact that you need a local
partner is always difficult, especially when you bring investors on
board.”
For entrepreneurs looking to start an e-commerce startup in the
region, the cofounders offer some advice. “It’s important to be
differentiated; it’s important to stand for a product line or for
an idea,” says Ben Amor. “You have a lot of copycats that try to
emulate successful companies in the region, and you just don’t
remember any of their names; you don’t know what they really
do.”
The founders may be taking a dig at some of the e-commerce startups
who have recently cropped up, although most of the companies that
we've interviewed certainly have a sense of what differentiates
them, sometimes overusing words like "quirky" and "unique." It all
comes down to execution, however; whether KooraBazar- or any
e-commerce startup- can get products into customers' hands quickly
and easily will determine their fate.
Of course, the team is also eyeing the Saudi market. While the team
of three sees most of their traction coming from the UAE, where
they use Aramex as a shipping and warehousing partner, they have
high hopes for serving football fans next door. “Football is huge
in Saudi Arabia so we’re really counting on that market,” says
Kleivokiotis. “It will probably be our biggest market in the
future.”