BTW these online vendors can bring in serious money. I remember jadopado starting up a few years ago as a small-time experiment. Now it's worth dh100M!

As Millhouse says, Amazon is eyeing up souq.com, with an estimated price tag of $275M!

That's for 30pct. Valuation is nearer 1bn.

Would love to know when flood has his bad expeirence with souq. They have really improved in last 2 years or so. Especially on logistics.

This month!

Amazon's usually excellent, but they don't have seamless connections between their ordering system / couriers / support staff. When I've had problems before they've usually sorted it out fine, but this week's been a nightmare ... they'll need to have their systems down to a fine art to get it working well in the Middle East. Still, huge opportunities for them.

I've used them often, no problems. But I rarely buy from the marketplace vendors, just from Souq itself.