Sukar.com, a leading online private shopping club in the Middle East, said it had crossed the million member mark, demonstrating the region’s growing confidence in the online medium as an eCommerce channel.

A member of the Jabbar Internet Group, Sukar.com operates across nine countries, including the GCC, Jordan, Lebanon and Egypt.

The private shopping club offers members a daily changing selection of deals on fashion clothing, jewellery, watches, accessories, gadgets, electronics and home decor brands at up to 90 per cent off retail prices.

The phenomenal growth in members enjoyed by the club in 2010 has almost tripled this year, said a senior official.

“We have achieved month-on-month revenue growth of 20 to 30 per cent in the 18 months since we first launched and that has significantly exceeded our initial projected expectations,” Muhammad Chbib, CEO of Sukar.com.

“The popularity of deal sites has skyrocketed in the region in the past year. While Sukar.com offers something very different from that offered by others, our special deals work on a similar principle of limited availability – in terms of number of products and a short purchase window,” explained Chbib.

Part of the Global Shopping Club Alliance, Sukar.com boasts of a team of over 100 employees in the UAE, US, Europe and Turkey.

According to Chbib, rising internet penetration rates alongside the growing confidence in the internet as a safe purchasing channel has spurred the growth of this sector.

All transaction data on Sukar.com is sent over extended validation secure socket layer protocol (EV-SSL) which is the highest security rating any web page can attain.

'Today people are comfortable making transactions online, which wasn’t really the case just a couple of years ago. The market needed to reach a level of acceptance before its potential could really be explored,' he remarked.

'In addition, the region’s young, tech-savvy and brand-savvy consumers increasingly resort to tag-comparing behavior, in that they will compare prices of products they find in their local stores with prices available through other channels, mainly online. They also look for products that are not available in their own markets,” Chbib said.

Founder and president Saygin Yalcin said: “Our global sourcing team continually expands its portfolio of international partners – which range from top fashion and lifestyle brands such as Fendi, Gucci, Tommy Hilfiger, Calvin Klein, Ray-Ban, Ralph Lauren, Apple, Blackberry to up-and-coming designers – allowing us to offer our members the best designer deals all the time.”

'Our club has increased the number of deals available to our members to between 400-450 campaigns per month,' Yalcin pointed out.

Sukar.com currently ships out of Dubai to customers across the GCC, Jordan, Lebanon and Egypt, and is expected to enhance its warehouse operations in the next few months to deal with its growing volume of business.

In Dubai, Sukar.com’s warehouse capacity has recently been tripled and a second shift has been introduced for its operations staff to cover the increased volume of customer orders.

“We are currently investing in a website upgrade that enhances usability. But we are also actively looking into creating Sukar Apps for various mobile platforms as this is where we expect the market is going,' he added.-TradeArabia News Service