Iranian Online Market is ready for Penetration
If you are a trader in e-business era and are searching for a vast and virgin market to sell your goods and services or to buy from a list of very qualified still low price and economical, you should know lots of rules. However, each market in e-business world is different than the other and each country has its own rules and methods to get inside. Regardless of many common factors that you should know, having domestic knowledge of the market is vital. If your business is ready to go abroad, Iranian market should be in top of your list and for this scenario, you have to consider below issues.
1- Working with Iranian traders is not that much easy. The e-business, however is something well known, but, even in the US and Europe, is new to many traders but in Iran is too new and even frightening to traders. Iranian traditional trading rules are dominant and there is a little number of traders who know the e-business or are willing to use it. So, you have to pay more energy to start e-business with them.
2- Online payment is still a problem. Iranian traders are not able to have commerce transactions online or they have it very basic and inefficient. Iranian banks are not yet that much armed with the new technologies and rules are not supporting the money transfer mechanisms. No credit cards are still active and international credit cards like Visa and MasterCard are not easy to own. So, you will need to have traditional payment methods still active in the whole process of e-business with Iranian traders.
3- Many of Iranian products have not any competitor in the whole world. This makes Iranian traders relax and sit you trade with them in the way they prefer. For example, Iranian rugs and carpets traders could offer unique products that you wont find like them in any store, so, to trade, you should forget online world and work in the traditional system.
4- The online Iranian traders are too young. Those youngsters that are following their ancestors business are now getting more and more familiar with the e-business and know it better but, for you, should accept a higher degree of risk to work with this young people.
5- They speak in a different language. So, you should be able to at least understand what they are saying because the Iranian traders have not that much time and interest to learn English language. So you have to pay for a translator or you should train your listening ability to have a communication with them.
6- Iranian traders are not e-mail lovers. Many of them may have an e-mail addresses but in yahoo.com or hotmail.com and their mailbox is always full or is not visited for months. So be sure that your e-mail to them would be lost. Your fax machine should work perfect.
7- They do not have an up-to-date website. They are easier to send you a sample of their product by their own expenses rather than putting its photo and specification on their website. Their website is almost dead and no body takes care of it.
8- Lack of online yellow pages and directories. There are little yellow pages online for you to be able to search or browse Iranian traders. However there may be some Iranian traders ready to do e-business, but finding them is difficult. To start a search, you can test below directories: - www.iranece.com - www.shopiran.biz - www.persialinx.com - www.parseek.com - www.icciran.com
But do not trust on all the information you may find in these directories. They may be out of date or show you expired or even incorrect information.
9- Many of well known Iranian traders have agents in other countries and you may choose them for your e-business, so, after reaching them, search for their agent list in other countries. Start from these big traders and see their agent page: - www.azimzadeh.ir - www.yek-o-yek.ir
10- Weblog is very popular in Iranian online society and many of Iranian traders have a weblog that you can start your very first negotiations from within their very native weblog page. You can start accessing lots of Iranian online trader weblog by visiting www.persianblog.com.
The above list is not a list of difficulties but a list of considerations for those who are willing to start online e-business with Iranian traders. However it may be though that it would be too difficult to have online business with Iranian market but the amount of income and benefit from having business with Iranian traders may be a parameter for you to accept the risk and try it. The speed of transformation from traditional trading to online ecommerce is too high that may be far beyond of your imagination and the above list would become just a part of the history, very soon. Banking in Iran is growing rapidly and there is not even a bank that has not activated a very attractive and active website. Many Iranians are now getting credit cards by using banks in nearby countries like U.A.E and are now buying and selling online. So, the future of having online business with Iranian traders is not that much complicated and hard to penetrate. This may be in you long term business strategy, but shouldnt be longer than two or three years, else, your competitors would win.
About the Author
Mahmood Bashaash, Tehran, Iran
info@mahmoodb.com
http://www.mahmoodb.com
Mahmood Bashaash is the owner of SGNetway (
http://www.sgnetway.com) company
which is focused on developing web sites and web applications. SGNetway is
specialized on managing outsourced projects and uses Microsoft .Net platform
with C# to develop complicated web applications and web services. Mahmood
Bashaash is the author of www.MahmoodB.com and www.appliedmarketingtips.com
websites focused on Internet marketing tips and tricks. To access his articles,
visit:
http://www.mahmoodb.com. His native language is Persian and his web site
is totally in Persian language.
