PayPal and Aramex launch first cross-border marketplace

PayPal and Aramex have entered into a partnership to create first cross-border marketplace, www.ishoptheworld.com, which will provide an integrated shipping and payments solution.

As part of the integration agreement, the portal will be the only such marketplace to give consumers access to checkout from merchants spread across 15 countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, the United States of America, Europe, South East Asia and Africa at once.

Qatar-based consumers will also be able to access this facility. Hassan Mikail, chief e-commerce officer at Aramex, told The Edge, “The portal is seamlessly integrated with Aramex’s Shop and Ship, a solution enabling cross-border shopping from 15 cities around the world. Qatar-based consumers are already big fans of Shop and Ship.”

Kivanc Onan, PayPal’s regional director for Turkey, the MENA, said, “Today’s online customers are increasingly discerning when it comes to goods bought online – they search for specific products from specific countries, often unavailable in their home country – and ishoptheworld.com allows these consumers to shop for products from almost anywhere in the world.”

Mikail added that the marketplace was created with small and medium size merchants in mind, “to help them scale their business globally without alienating other dominant brands and traders from any of our 15 shopping cities”.

For the initial launch phase, Aramex will allow payment through PayPal, but Mikail added, “We look forward to keep enhancing and innovating the payment interface available and further strengthening our global alliance. PayPal was the only solution available to onboard merchants from 15 cities around the world and hence facilitating the ‘one stop checkout’ for consumers, should their shopping basket include purchases from merchants all over the world.”