Khabar Khair (Only Good News) – Fatima Rashad

   With the support of H&M and in partnership with CARE International, Jusoor Foundation for Development Solutions launched Aden Bazaar application for Yemeni women entrepreneurs and women small business owners, which came under the title (Aden Bazaar). This application includes 600 various projects ranging from making fragrances and perfumes, handicrafts, accessories, pastries, and electronics…

    Muhammad Al-Ban: (Executive Director of Jusoor Foundation for Small Enterprise Development) told Khabar Khair (Only Good News): “Aden Bazaar application is the first Adeni online platform for online commerce aiming to collect home-based businesses owners and entrepreneurs’ products, market and deliver them within a unified online platform, and working on promoting their products in domestic and foreign markets”.

      Al-Ban added: “We chose to market through this online bazaar, because there are success stories for some countries regarding this field, those countries provide attractive opportunities for small business owners on the one hand, and for the society on the other hand, especially in developing countries. India, Ethiopia, and Peru are examples of countries that have experiences in such markets, where online markets were opened for women working from home, and these online opportunities are especially important for women and productive families working from home and giving them the chance to participate in the bazaar enable them to access to customers and promote their products, locally and abroad, in an easy inexpensive way. Moreover, they can keep electronic books and deliver them easily and at the lowest cost.”

      Regarding the project’s infrastructure, Al-Ban said: “We have built an integrated infrastructure to ensure the success of small businesses by training women entrepreneurs on how to use the application, and how to post photos of the products in the application. Those women were trained by professional trainers so that they develop their capabilities. In addition, there are special cars to transport and deliver products to customers, and a special integrated studio to take some photos of the products of those businesses, as well as a digital studio for recording training courses to improve the capacities of business owners.

    Umm Maher (a biscuit seller and one of the participants in the bazaar) added: “The bazaar will ease bargaining between the buyer and the seller, because bargaining kills us especially if we have so many orders, so I move away from bargaining which most of the time do me no good. And the bazar will be the liaison between the customer and us, and concession offered to us as female entrepreneurs will help us in our line of work, especially with the free delivery service available to the customer for an entire year.”

     Regarding the work mechanisms in the bazaar, Al-Ban said: “Aden online Bazaar is located in Khor Maksar – White City, and working hours start from 8 A.M to 8 P.M from Saturday to Thursday, and there is technical support and a complaints box that will provide services from 8 A.M to 12 P.M, 7 days a week, as for the mode of payment, it will be by receiving the product and paying in cash and transferring the money to the businesswoman’s bank account, in addition delivery of orders is free, and there are special offers that can be seen when logging in to the application through the offers icon.

    Regarding the importance of the bazaar, Shaima, owner of the accessories business, stressed that the bazaar will be a window for products to reach the largest segment of the target audience at home and abroad, and will help improving their production and promoting their projects.