Dubai-based global logistics company DP World has launched a wholesale eCommerce website that it hopes will become the global platform for businesses to buy and sell products.
The platform, Dubuy, aims to connect buyers and sellers all over the world with products available for delivery through the supply chain of DP World and its logistics partners. Dubuy is already operational in Rwanda, with plans to extend to Ethiopia, Kenya, and Uganda soon, before being rolled out across the continent. It will be released in markets outside of Africa as well.
Mr. Mahmood Al Bastaki, Chief Operating Officer of DT World, a wholly-owned DP World subsidiary remarked that “we are multimodal. We are not only a port terminal operator. We are a global trade enabler. That’s our vision. We want to be in anything that has to do with the movement of cargo.”
In the next two and a half years, Dubuy plans to cover half of Africa and the whole continent in four years. Sellers in Dubai are already connected to the platform.
Dubuy is collaborating with mobile companies to make digital wallet payments, and it’s also looking at how sellers can ship their products if they choose to.
Mr. Al Bastaki refused to say how much DP World has invested in Dubuy so far. He said that the platform employed 25 full-time DP World staff, in addition to many more contractors.
DP World wants Dubuy to be the world’s largest business-to-business eCommerce platform, but it has no plans to compete with Amazon or other business-to-consumer platforms, Mr. Al Bastaki added.
By next year, Dubuy is targeting to have one million individual items available, and DP World is providing guaranteed delivery dates to encourage users to sign up. Other platforms being developed by DP World include a trade finance platform for exporters, importers, and others, as well as a freight booking platform that shows various company prices.
“We want the importer to import more, to continue importing, and the exporter to export more and to continue exporting. We want the flow of goods to continue,” Mr. Al Bastaki concluded.
