This article appeared in The Daily Star - Sept 26, 2016 (https://goo.gl/RwzxJi)

The slowdown in economic activity and decline in the number of tourists coming to Lebanon in the past few years has weighed heavily on hotels, restaurants and providers of a variety of services in the country. But Scoopcity, a social buying site, adopted the mission of compensating retailers for their losses by promoting their services on condition that they provide customers with discounts of no less than 50 percent. “We allow merchants to create specific deals that consist of at least 50 percent discount in a bid to attract new clientele,” Scoopcity’s CEO Tarek Naaman said. “People would easily try a new restaurant, for instance, if they had a good deal.”

Naaman explained that Scoopcity works to the benefit of both the clients and merchants. “Merchants have the opportunity to reach a huge customer base through our site while users get the chance to explore more places and activities in the city,” he said. Scoopcity was co-founded in 2011 by brothers Abdallah and Ghaith Yafi with the aim of introducing e-commerce to Lebanon. Today, the company is co-managed by Naaman and Marwan Tibi. Scoopcity was initially supported by IM Capital, which provides matching capital, equity guarantee, as well as support programs to a broad range of qualified early businesses and investors. IM Capital is funded by USAID under the Middle East and North Africa Investment Initiative (MENA II), aiming to improve access to finance and revenue growth for startups. Scoopcity was launched to offer discounts on premium services, which allows customers to get the best out of Beirut at very special prices. The site now has over 100,000 users and it markets its offers by sending daily emails to clients, in addition to personalized offers. “Retailers usually work with us to market their services and they do not look at making money out of our cooperation,” Naaman said. “It is considered a marketing expense for them, but it will definitely bring them more business and profits in the future,” he added. Companies working with Scoopcity provide a variety of services; there are hotels, spas, restaurants and organizers of activities. Following the big success of Scoopcity and its capacity to attract a great number of users to its site, the young entrepreneurs in charge of the business saw the need to broaden the scope of their services by merging Scoopcity with Quadron Analytics, originally co-founded in 2014 by Naaman and Tibi. Quadron Analytics is a solution that helps retailers make time-based, data-driven decisions about marketing and retail operations by utilizing advanced technologies. “Quadron allows merchants and retailers to analyze the traffic flow in their locations. Based on this analysis they make decisions to enhance their marketing operations and staffing activities in general,” Naaman explained. Naaman said Quadron installs sensors inside stores to count how many mobile phones exist in these locations. “We calculate the number of people present in a certain location based on the number of mobile phones,” he said. “Although the method is not complete, just like any other statistical analysis, it is more accurate than traditional analysis,” he added. Naaman explained further: “We offer to merchants the tools and means to analyze how many people pass in front of their stores for them to assess if their locations are good or not. We also allow them to analyze how many people enter their store and whether their vitrines are efficient or they need rearrangement.” Naaman said that Quadron sells on a subscription basis. “It takes time to build a customer base for Quadron because the company was launched recently and requires a big investment in R&D at the beginning,” he said. But Scoopcity is a mature, profitable company today despite the challenges it faced upon its inception. “The main challenge we faced with Scoopcity is that the concept was new and the steep discount rates were not much accepted by merchants,” Naaman said. “It took time for the market to accept that, and now it is common.” Naaman said Scoopcity divides the money generated out of the offers sold with service providers. Scoopcity is not the only site providing discounted services to customers. Many other websites started offering such services years ago. But what differentiates Scoopcity is the fact that it provides only premium services. “We chose to cater to the premium market and our merchants are from a premium segment of society,” he said. “Also, merchants work with us exclusively most of the time,” he added. Naaman said that the future plan for Scoopcity is to go regional. “Quadron is already operating in the region but we are managing from Beirut and we have partners in Dubai and Saudi Arabia,” he said. Scoopcity is also developing a mobile application to allow users to get deals and promotions on the go. “You can be walking in Beirut Souks for instance and suddenly get a notification about an offer that will expire in five minutes in one of the stores that you like,” he said. “We will be sending personalized offers to customers based on their preferences.”