By Nuramalina Ebrahim
KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 13 (Bernama) — Zilzar.com, the world’s first global Muslim lifestyle marketplace e-commerce platform, targets to boost its presence in more countries such the United Kingdom and Turkey by next year, said Chief Executive Officer of Zilzar Tech Sdn Bhd, Rushdi Siddiqui.
He said the company’s vision was to have a halal ecosystem from a wider user base covering buyers, sellers, bloggers and entrepreneurs.
The e-commerce platform encompasses 57 Muslim countries with a population of two billion, plus the 100 million Muslims outside the Muslim world.
“We are embarking on something ambitious globally. We want to address all the needs of the stakeholders in the Muslim life space,” he said at the Fifth Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) World Biz Trade Exhibition and Conference here today.
Rushdi, who is also the founder of zilzar.com, said the company’s objective was to fill the marketplace by addressing the needs of micro and small and medium enterprises (SMEs), export-ready SMEs and entrepreneurs.
“If we can empower the SMEs to bring their products and services to new markets, we can help them grow their trade.
“I want to address their needs, I want to educate them, and I want to make them part of the halal ecosystem,” he told Bernama.
“So if you happen to make a product or service encompassing the Muslim lifestyle, you are welcome. We are taking a holistic approach to address all eight sectors of the Muslim lifestyle.
“We want them to be connected, communicate and trade with each other,” he added.
The eight sectors are food and beverage (F&B); Islamic finance; clothing and fashion; travel and tourism; media and recreation; pharmaceutical; cosmetics; and logistics.
He said all products, especially in F&B, cosmetics and pharmaceutical sectors, must be certified with halal certification before they could be sold on zilzar.com.
Additionally, the e-commerce site provides consumers with various content and information including news, institutions, education and others.
Rushdi added: “So, it’s partly Facebook, Twitter, Wall Street Journal, partly Alibaba…Lots of different things coming into one particular platform.”