How digital top-ups and new UAE site keep Nahdi moving in the right direction

When the pandemic first took hold in the Middle East, SQLI partner Nahdi quickly redefined its priorities. 

Operating under a massive network of more than 1200 pharmacies, the largest pharmaceutical chain in the Middle East and North Africa went back to basics, focusing on keeping its commerce platform running smoothly. In return, it was rewarded with some impressive sales figures.


“During Covid, our main focus was to keep the website live and make sure our delivery systems and delivery methods could meet demand.

“Not surprising, our online touch points got 10 times more traffic and orders increased sixfold, so it wasn’t a time to look at new commerce features,” said Pawel Dabrowski, Nahdi’s Omnichannel Director.

“Many sites were going down and companies were struggling to meet demand, but despite the huge hike in orders, the platform performed incredibly well and proved robust.   With the help of SQLI, we managed to maintain first-rate service and delivery levels.”

When the first lockdown was lifted, Pawel and his team focused their attention on improving the user journey and omnichannel experience for the site, as well as launching a new ecommerce capability for the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

“Our goal from the onset was to get the new ecommerce platform up-and-running as quickly as possible, getting customers using the site and making improvements as we went along.

“Having the Adobe Commerce infrastructure in place allows for enhancements to be made easily and cost effectively - and with minimum disruptions to the day-to-day running of the site.

PawelDabrowski
Pawel Dabrowski, Nahdi’s Omnichannel Director

With SQLI’s support, Nahdi has added new functions and extensions to the Adobe Commerce platform, providing its customers with live information on stock availability and allowing them to search for products at different locations.

“It has been a challenging project but everything is now running smoothly and we are seeing much better statistics and figures all round, because of it.  We’ve tripled the number of daily transactions during lockdown, with May 2021 being our best month since lockdown.”

SQLI also built a new commerce site for Nahdi in the UAE with the same features as the original site.   As Pawel explained: “The new UAE site launched in January 2021 - it’s early days, but signs are positive.”

Another project underway is ‘Scan and Go’. Customers will soon be able to go into a store, scan a product and leave without going through a regular checkout.

In true omnichannel style, customers can pay online by scanning a QR code for the store with their phone.  Once the product has been scanned, it’s added to the customers basket online and payment is made. The customer is given a barcode which they show to a store assistant on leaving the store.

Pawel said: “It’s an exciting new system that we believe will provide a much quicker, streamlined shopping experience for our guests.  It will be introduced shortly to Nahdi stores with high traffic volumes.”

Other projects on the horizon include a revamp of the user journey with close attention paid to product details on pages and checkout. Nahdi will also be upgrading its search engine and adding additional tools to allow more analytics and personalisation to improve the customer experience further.

Pawel added: “We believe in taking small steps - making gradual improvements, regularly. The high and ever-increasing number of daily transactions and above standard conversion rates make us one of the biggest and most successful omnichannel players in the region."

“We continue to enjoy working closely with SQLI and our partners who share our vision, understand our needs and goals and are excited about the future.

“As a company, we’re exactly where we want to be and in the best position digitally should any more unforeseen issues arise in the future.”

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