A new marketplace platform is launching soon, just before Ramadan 2021 for UK-based buyers and sellers. The Muslim-friendly marketplace platform can be loosely compared to the eBay alternative for Muslim-focused and Muslim-friendly online marketplace platform. The best part of it is that it’s zero-cost for the sellers to sell on the marketplace.
“When we think of buying clothes, we think of buying from, say, Adidas. Why don’t we buy from Ayesha, or Ahmed, who sell on Instagram, or something similar? To be honest, their products would be just as good, and we know how big brands make clothes.”
Raees Sayed went to explain his passion to turn it into a business that supports other Muslim businesses.
“If I’m going to support Muslim businesses, why don’t I start with something that can be done with a marketplace platform. I then built the marketplace platform myself.”
The founder of the UK-based Muslim-friendly marketplace platform is Raees Sayed, and his marketplace platform is called Ummazing. The name is a play on words, as it sounds similar to ‘amazing‘.
His entrepreneurial spirit runs in the family, as his family owns a business in the water treatment industry. Raees spoke with Halalop editor, Shahfizal Musa, recently.
“I wanted to create a platform that everyone goes to, for everything that a Muslim needs. I saw that there were only a few marketplaces available for Muslims that are run by people on the ground.”
The marketplace is also open to non-Muslim businesses serving the Muslim consumers.
Think of a marketplace like a shopping centre, where all the sellers sell all types of products under one roof. So is it worth putting them up on online marketplaces versus selling on your own website? Or is the competition too much, and too crowded for your products to stand out?
The short answer is yes, it’s worth it, only for the buyers’ traffic. People who go to marketplace platforms have the intention of buying something, compared to the general visitor traffic who might not yet be committed to a purchase.
“For sellers, there will be no commisson charged to them.”
“I don’t want to take money from the businesses of the sellers. There’s no commission fee, there’s no listing fee. There’s literally no fees, we don’t want to charge the sellers any fees.”
The offer to sellers to come onboard the Ummazing marketplace platform may sound too good to be true, but Raees is serious about committing to the zero-cost for the sellers.
“We know have a good spread of sellers across the different segments: food, fashion, home decor, personalized gifts, arts, and beverages. We’re only taking on products that are good, and generally deserved more recognition.”
According to Raees, they also want to help small business owners go digital, as many local business retailers do not have a web presence.
“So many good small businesses don’t have a web presence. However, all businesses are interested to make more money. So if we can help them make more money by being on our platform, then that is good.”
More than just a marketplace platform, Ummazing also has a blogging platform where its users can blog on the platform.
Raees went on to explain, “What we try to do is anyone who’s running a business, and want some publicity. The readers of the blog will then understand the person behind the business, the person who is making the product.”
“We get good feedback about the blog. We don’t write the blogs ourselves, we get other people to write their own experiences. We do the editing to make sure the right type of content is published.”
According to Raees, the blog writers come from all over the UK, and other countries and the topics are wide-ranging, from food to social, to some sensitive topics such as racism within the Ummah.
Ummazing is launching just prior to Ramadan this year, on the 5th of April 2021, where it will be open for buyers to start buying on its platform.
Farah Ishak is a Content Writer at Halalop. She grew up in the United Kingdom where she obtained her Bachelor’s degree in Management. Later, she completed her MBA and held senior-level positions in Malaysian based MNC. She left the corporate world to be with her young kids. She is passionate about issues concerning Muslim women, Startups and Muslim businesses in general.
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