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GoNabit's founders say this development milestone will help bring one of the fastest growing web retail trends to an even wider audience in the Middle East. Last month, Mashable, the influential internet news blog, named group buying as one of the top five social media trends to watch right now.
Dan Stuart, CEO and Co-founder of GoNabit, said:
"As a company we of course want to have local relevance to every market we are in and the availability of GoNabit in Arabic has been important to us from the outset. This development offers consumers more choice, and the dual language capability strengthens the GoNabit model for merchants as we can now market their services in both English and Arabic."
The launch of GoNabit in Arabic comes just two months after the company began offering daily deals in Dubai, and one month after its Abu Dhabi website went live. With subscriber numbers increasing daily, now at approximately 16,000 users, GoNabit has sold over 2,800 deals or 'nabits' across its Dubai and Abu Dhabi pages, saving buyers close to half a million dirhams in the process. Deals so far have ranged from massages, dining experiences and beauty products to outdoor adventures and fitness classes.
GoNabit is a new way to shop in the UAE. Subscribers opt in to receive a daily email offering them something cool to do in their city with a discount of between 50 to 90%. To successfully "nab" the deal, it must first tip - the point at which a minimum agreed number of purchasers opts into buying the deal. Once the tipping point is achieved and the deal goes live, any GoNabit subscriber can purchase it. The deal is available for 24 to 48 hours, or 72 hours for Thursday's deal which extends over the weekend.
In this way GoNabit encourages buyers to share daily deals with friends via email, Facebook or Twitter, plan joint activities and take advantage of the low prices together. Purchases are made by credit card through PayPal and customers are charged only if the deal tips. Successful transactions on GoNabit receive an e-voucher for the product or service to be redeemed directly with the merchant within an agreed time frame.
With its Arabic content launching in time for Ramadan, a key gift giving period for retailers, GoNabit says its website will offer an additional, clutter-free marketing channel to businesses during the Holy Month while bringing more choice for gift ideas to consumers.
Commenting on the response to GoNabit in the UAE, Sohrab Jahanbani, Co-founder and COO of GoNabit said, "We are seeing a lot of activity on our websites; visitor numbers are increasing daily, deals are tipping, our social media groups are running hot and we have some avid GoNabit fans becoming value evangelists by spreading the word on Facebook and Twitter and encouraging their social media community to tip the deals."
"We've also had excellent feedback from merchants who have partnered with us to offer deals. Merchants are really waking up to the game-changing potential of GoNabit after seeing the huge scope for customer creation that we offer and the targeted marketing to our savvy consumer database," added Jahanbani.
Following its success in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, GoNabit is mobilising operations to launch daily deals in 10 cities around the region by the end of the year, bringing remarkable experiences to consumers and allowing them to discover great savings online while enjoying fun offline.
"We created GoNabit.com to be a pioneering, safe, secure, online group buying website that helps people come together, save and discover locally. We are thrilled to offer Arabic content to our UAE consumers, and are now working towards making GoNabit available throughout the region," added Stuart.
Posted by Rana Mesbah
