How can Online Marketplaces support small projects?

By Hussein Al-Bayati / OpenSooq Iraq

Small enterprises are the main component of most growing and developed economies, for example; Small businesses are responsible for providing two-thirds of new jobs in the United States, and at least 44% of all US economic activity1 . Iraq is no exception, as all studies indicate the importance of small projects to advance the economic and development reality in the country. There are many challenges facing small enterprises in Iraq, and one of the most prominent of these, is the problem of marketing and customer access. In order to achieve the profits that are sufficient for the continuity of the project, there must be the right channels that guarantee reaching the target audience for that project. This is where Online Marketplaces comes into play in facilitating access to potential customers.

Online marketplaces are platforms that enable its users to display their products and work to bring potential customers to that platform to gather supply and demand in one place. For example, the OpenSooq website and application provides a smooth and easy-to-use online platform for the seller and buyer, whereby anyone who owns a business can create an account on the OpenSooq within minutes and begins publishing the ads of the goods he wants to promote in order to start the sale directly.

The mission of OpenSooq consists of 3 pillars

1- The company invests a lot of effort and resources to convert those looking for various types of goods (cars, bicycles, phones, real estate ... etc) on the Google site to the OpenSooq platform, thus ensuring that users of the platform that their products will appear to those searching for them in the priority of the results of search sites. You can search for "cars for sale", for example, on the Google site, to show the first results that refer to cars on the OpenSooq website. These products are also promoted through multiple channels on social media in a regular and funded way to convert product seekers on those platforms to sellers on the OpenSooq.

2- The user’s ease of access to the goods he is searching for through the OpenSooq website and application, by dividing the products into 18 main sections and then into different subsections in addition to the possibility of filtering on the basis of the city and neighborhood, the type of devices, the year of manufacture ... etc., and the ease of communication between the seller and the buyer On the OpenSooq platform by direct contact or private messages via the application or comment.

3- Supporting the brand name for small projects by providing the option to create an electronic store, where you can add the brand and project details, and provide accurate statistics for the number of visitors to the store and their behaviors in terms of contact and promotion of those stores within the search results and other features. In addition to providing Added Value Services for these projects in order to facilitate their access to a larger number of customers, the OpenSooq Company seeks to develop small companies and make them a partner in success.

There are more than 7 million visits to the OpenSooq platform every month in Iraq, and most of the site's visitors are people who intend to buy because the application is dedicated to shopping only, which means that they are confirmed customers, and this number of visits makes the OpenSooq the largest electronic market in Iraq, and even greater than any traditional market In the country.

What we also noticed during the Corona Virus crisis is that the number of visits has increased dramatically, indicating that people have begun to search for alternatives to traditional markets, and here comes the opportunity for small business owners to take advantage of the OpenSooq platform and reach the largest number of customers.