Saudi e-tailer noon.com recently hosted a gala event celebrating the brightest and boldest sellers in the region. noon’s Seller Summit UAE offered sellers an exclusive look at upcoming launches, insights into noon’s biggest ever Yellow Friday Sale, and an address by noon’s founder Mohamed Alabbar, who drove a noon motorbike onstage to deliver a powerful keynote address.
Hundreds of sellers joined the event, which was held in line with social distancing measures in the beautiful setting of the Dubai Opera.
The annual Seller Awards were the highlight of the evening and saw 13 of the region’s brightest sellers handed trophies by noon’s CEO Faraz Khalid, and Alabbar. Among those were EMAX (Power Retailer), Shoexpress (Top Customer Rated Seller), L’Oreal Middle East (Most Innovative Partner), and Home Box (Best noon Seller).
The event also celebrated the rise of local-based entrepreneurship through noon’s Mahali program, created to give local sellers, Emirati and Saudi micro-entrepreneurs tailored support and guidance to help their business dreams and ambitions grow. Local Mahali seller SpeedyBee was awarded noon’s Top Customer Rated Mahali Seller Award of 2021.
Noon’s engineering team detailed the important progress that has been made in terms of tools available to sellers. Robert O’Kirwan, head of product, and Alex Nadalin, SVP technology, told the SME-packed audience that after listening to sellers — noon has worked overtime to alleviate friction. Improvements include an upgraded catalog system, a new reputation management dashboard, and brand stores to allow sellers to showcase their brand as they wish, using noon as their platform.
Details about noon’s largest sale of the year, Yellow Friday, featured prominently at the summit. The sale, which covers all of Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Egypt, will begin on Nov. 22 and end on Nov. 28.
Ali Kafil-Hussain, chief of staff at noon, told the audience that noon has “come such a long way since our first Yellow Friday in 2018 where we started with 1,000 sellers and 5,000 brands. Now in our fourth Yellow Friday, we will have over 5,000 sellers and 50,000 brands participating.”
Neha Choudhary, VP onsite operations, said: “During the build-up to this year’s Yellow Friday Sale, we will have a huge 11/11 sale and reveal a ton of surprises, including exclusive offers and never-seen-before deals. This will set us up for 2021’s Yellow Friday Sale, which will be the largest one yet.”
Closing the event, Alabbar drove a noon food bike onto the stage, much to the delight of the audience, before removing his helmet and delivering a 15-minute keynote speech.
“This industry is the future of our lifetime, our children, and our society. It’s the future of our jobs. It is the state of mind of beyond tomorrow. The world is changing. Our businesses are changing,” Alabbar said.
Commenting on noon’s future strategy, he said: “The ecosystem we are building has a mission of bringing our cities online. All businesses, services and products will be accessible digitally through integrated platforms. This is our new business! We have built an incredible delivery system, we have built the technology, we are amazing people, and most of all — we are brave!“
Noon.com is a joint venture between Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund and Alabbar.
