This morning I met with Bassel on Zoom.

Bassel is from Lebanon and came to Dubai in 2015 after spending a few years in Bahrain and Saudi in the healthcare sector.

He worked for a few years in the tech space with HP and Capillary Technologies. In Feb 2019, he decided to turn entrepreneur along with his business partner Shaan. And so The Saffron Souk was launched. At that time an e-commerce platform, ‘Little Majlis’ decided to focus on marketing its products and several hundred sellers were looking for a new home for selling their wares. The Saffron Souk provided the ideal platform for this strong community of sellers.

I asked Bassel how he thought of the name The Saffron Souk. In his words, “Saffron is so precious and a small portion of it while using as an ingredient in cooking makes a huge difference to the overall taste of a meal.” Besides saffron has its origins in the Middle East and so it was the ideal name for his brand.

The Saffron Souk is more than just a marketplace, it is an online community of creative entrepreneurs & smart shoppers. Saffron Souk’s mission is to empower micro-businesses in the region and help them market their creations to a larger global audience. Today The Saffron Souk has some 650 suppliers of gifts, fashion accessories, jewelry items, family and baby products, and the ecosystem is growing every day.

Any supplier of homemade and personalized products can register online to become a supplier. Bassel provides the small retailers various services to help the suppliers sell, deliver, and find new business opportunities. The Saffron Souk uses AI and Social media campaigns to retarget people based on their areas of interest.

The Saffron Souk has found customers from far away lands. Recently a client from Las Vegas bought camel-shaped wine glass charms in bulk. The B2B business of Saffron Souk is a growing segment of the overall revenue stream. The Saffron Souk blog is the perfect place to find out what’s new in our community. You can be inspired, find supportive content for your business & make the most of some top shopping tips.

There is an average of 500 transactions monthly. During gifting, season business has scaled to around 1,000 transactions per month.

Bassel is presently crowdfunding at Eureeca, and future plans include investing in tech, digital marketing, and sales training for sellers.

The Saffron Souk is in the making to be the Etsy of the region. Bassel’s vision is on the right track!

Penned by Sharad Agarwal