Offerna: Egypt's first group buying website

With over 25 million people online in Egypt and close to 80 million users in the Arab world, the internet boasts a world of opportunities in the region. It was this notion that led Abdalla Assal, Tamer Adel and Yasser Lotfy to set up Offerna in early 2011.

“Our approach was that Egypt and the Arab world have a high and growing internet penetration [rate] with a high demand for internet services. The supply on the other hand is [minimal] whether it is e-commerce or content and so we thought that the internet is the place to be,” says Assal, co-founder and CEO of the company.

According to Assal, Egypt’s e-commerce sector is still in its infancy; only 2–3% of internet users actually shop online, leaving a huge gap and lots of opportunities. The partners studied several online business models and decided that online discounts were something that would work well with Egyptians.

“When you sell a product online at half its original price it’s definitely an attractive offer,” says Assal. And this is what Offerna is all about: offering huge discounts on certain products and services given that a minimum number of buyers make a purchase. It is an Egyptian application of the American site Groupon.com

“We basically make deals with merchants to offer a certain service for a specified discount,” says Adel, who is the company’s vice president for operations. “We then put this offer online, send it to our mailing list, add it to our newsletter and post it on our Facebook page.”