E-Commerce Growth and Operations

Noon, Amazon.ae or Your Own Store: The UAE Seller Maths

Mohamad Haidar

Founder of Byblos Horizon

Published October 14, 2026 · 9 min read

Mohamad Haidar is Founder and CEO of Byblos Horizon, a growth and e-commerce studio in Beirut and Paris, and an official Shopify Partner. He works on how customer acquisition, inventory and logistics affect profitability for brands selling across Lebanon, MENA and Europe.

Saudi Arabia produced Salla and Zid. Egypt produced ExpandCart. The UAE produced neither, and that confuses people who expect every market to have a local Shopify.

The reason is simple. By the time local platform building became viable in the Gulf, UAE merchants had already standardised on Shopify and WooCommerce, and the competitive pressure in the Emirates came from a different direction: marketplaces. Noon and Amazon.ae did to UAE retail what Salla and Zid did to Saudi store building. They took the hard parts.

So the real UAE question is not which platform. It is whether you sell on someone else's marketplace, on your own store, or both. This article does that maths with actual published fees.

The market, with honest ranges

Estimates of the UAE e-commerce market vary widely depending on what gets counted. Statista's narrow business to consumer figure sits around 7.5 billion dollars. Mordor Intelligence, using a broader definition, puts it near 12.3 billion. EZDubai and Euromonitor measured AED 32.3 billion, about 8.8 billion dollars, in 2024, forecasting AED 50.6 billion by 2029. ECDB puts e-commerce at 15 to 20 percent of UAE retail.

Treat the market size as a range, not a number. Anyone quoting one figure with confidence has picked whichever suits their argument.

What matters more for a seller is the operational data, and that is where the UAE gets interesting.

The cash on delivery problem, quantified

Cash on delivery remains roughly 25 to 30 percent of UAE e-commerce transactions, down from about 40 percent in 2022 according to KPMG's reading, with the UAE Central Bank having put it near 40 percent in 2023. Shorages, using its own order data, puts it around 30 percent of volume.

The share is falling. The cost is not.

Cash on delivery orders return to origin at roughly 20 percent, against about 6 percent for prepaid orders, according to Shorages. Quiqup puts the gap higher, estimating that COD orders return at roughly twelve to thirteen times the rate of card paid orders. Stores that run COD heavy without managing it see return to origin rates of 25 to 35 percent.

Each rejected COD order costs AED 25 to 50 in two way shipping and handling, per Jeebly. And last mile delivery in remote and northern Emirates zones runs 15 to 25 percent of basket value, against 3 to 5 percent in dense urban areas, per Nexdigm.

Overall UAE return rates sit around 17 percent, rising to about 26 percent in apparel, per Quiqup's 2025 data.

Put those together and a UAE store with a 30 percent COD mix and an apparel catalogue is losing meaningful margin before it spends a dirham on advertising. This is the number most UAE sellers do not model, and it is the single biggest difference between a store that looks profitable in its dashboard and one that is profitable in its bank account. If you want to model it properly, our e-commerce cost calculator is built for Lebanon but the structure, landed cost plus refusal rate plus delivery, applies directly.

What Amazon.ae actually charges

Amazon publishes its UAE fees, which makes this the easier of the two marketplaces to model.

Referral fees start from 5 percent with a minimum of AED 1, and vary by category. Apparel, books, home and video games are 15 percent. Office products are 14 percent. Automotive is 12 percent. Consumer electronics is 7 percent. Mobile phones and gift cards are 5 percent. Grocery is 5 percent up to AED 50 and 11 percent above it. Baby, beauty and health and personal care run 8 percent up to AED 50 and 15 percent above. Everything else defaults to 10 percent.

Fulfilment by Amazon adds a per unit fee that depends on size and selling price. As of the August 2025 schedule, a small envelope under 100 grams is AED 5.50 on an item up to AED 25, and AED 7.50 above that. A standard parcel between 250 grams and 12 kilograms runs AED 7.20 to 19.50 up to AED 25, and AED 9.20 to 21.50 above. Oversize items run AED 10.50 to 41.50, with an extra AED 1 per kilogram above 30 kilograms. Easy Ship starts at AED 14 per shipment.

Storage is AED 2 per cubic foot per month, with an additional long term fee on inventory held past 365 days. The professional selling plan has been offered without a monthly subscription fee for a limited period. All of these figures exclude VAT, which Amazon adds.

So an apparel item selling at AED 150 through FBA carries roughly AED 22.50 in referral fee plus around AED 10 to 20 in fulfilment, before storage, before returns, before VAT. That is 25 to 30 percent of the sale price gone to the channel.

What noon charges

Noon publishes less, which is itself worth knowing before you commit inventory to it.

Commission runs roughly 5 to 27 percent depending on category. Electronics and mobile phones sit at the low end, around 5 to 8 percent. Grocery and FMCG around 8 to 15 percent. Beauty and personal care around 12 to 18 percent. Fashion and apparel around 15 to 20 percent.

Fulfilled by Noon fees run roughly SAR 8 to 15 per order for a typical item under one kilogram, with storage charged per cubic metre per month. Published rates for storage, returns handling and payout cycles are harder to pin down, and sellers are generally directed to Noon's Seller Lab for current figures.

That opacity is a real factor in the decision. You can model Amazon.ae's economics from published data before you sign up. With noon, you commit first and discover the detail second. Verify every rate in Seller Lab against your own category before you plan around it.

What your own store costs

A Shopify store in the UAE is a different cost structure, not a cheaper one.

Shopify's plans run from 29 dollars a month for Basic, through 79 for the standard plan, to 299 for Advanced. Unlike Saudi Arabia, the surcharge situation is less punishing because several gateways integrate cleanly, but you still pay the gateway.

UAE gateway rates, as published: Telr charges 2.49 percent plus AED 0.50 on UAE cards and 3.49 percent plus AED 0.50 on international cards, with monthly plans from AED 99 to AED 349 and settlement in two to three days. Network International runs 2.4 to 2.9 percent plus AED 1, negotiable down to around 1.9 percent at volume, settling in one to two days. Stripe is 2.9 percent plus AED 1 domestic, 3.9 percent plus AED 1 international, no monthly fee, settling in two days. PayTabs is 2.85 percent plus AED 0.27 on its Growth plan. Mamo is 2.9 percent plus AED 1 with no monthly fee, dropping to 1.9 percent on its AED 399 Ultra plan, and settles in one day. Tap Payments is 2.75 percent domestic with next day settlement.

So call it 2.5 to 2.9 percent in payment processing, against 5 to 20 percent in marketplace commission.

That gap is the entire argument for owning your channel. It is also misleading on its own, because the marketplace fee includes something your own store does not: customers.

The real comparison

The honest way to compare these is not fee against fee. It is total cost to acquire and fulfil one order.

On a marketplace, your cost per order is commission plus fulfilment plus storage plus returns. Call it 25 to 35 percent in apparel. In exchange, the channel brings the customer. Your marketing cost can be near zero if you rank well in marketplace search.

On your own store, your cost per order is payment processing at under 3 percent, plus platform fees, plus delivery, plus returns, plus whatever you spend to get that customer to your site in the first place. That last item is the whole game. If your blended customer acquisition cost is AED 60 on an AED 150 order, your own store is more expensive than Amazon, not less.

The number that decides it is repeat purchase rate. A marketplace customer is not yours. You do not get the email, you rarely get the relationship, and you pay the commission again on every reorder. A customer acquired to your own store costs you once and can be sold to repeatedly at near zero marginal acquisition cost.

So the maths comes down to this. If your product is bought once, infrequently, and compared on price, marketplaces usually win. If your product is bought repeatedly, or carries a brand people choose deliberately, your own store wins over a twelve month horizon even though it looks worse in month one.

What most UAE brands should actually do

Run both, and give each one a job.

Use the marketplace for discovery and for the products where you can absorb the commission. Electronics at 7 percent referral is a different proposition from apparel at 15 percent. Let Amazon and noon introduce you to customers you could not have reached.

Use your own store for margin, for the full catalogue, for bundles, for subscriptions, and for anything where you need the customer relationship. Build it properly, with a Shopify store configured for the UAE: AED pricing, local gateway, Arabic and English, and a delivery promise you can actually keep.

Then measure them separately. The common failure is running both and judging the store by the marketplace's conversion rate, which is not a fair comparison. A marketplace visitor arrived intending to buy. A store visitor arrived from an ad.

And fix cash on delivery before you scale either. Prepaid incentives, address verification, order confirmation by WhatsApp before dispatch, and a hard look at which postcodes are costing you 20 percent of basket value in last mile. That work is worth more than another percent of conversion rate optimisation.

Questions people are asking

Is there a UAE equivalent of Salla or Zid?

No. Saudi Arabia produced Salla and Zid because its market needed Arabic first checkout, local payment rails and ZATCA compliance that global platforms did not provide. The UAE never developed an equivalent at that scale, because merchants there standardised early on Shopify and WooCommerce. The local competition in the Emirates came from marketplaces, Noon and Amazon.ae, rather than from store platforms.

What does Amazon.ae charge sellers?

Referral fees start from 5 percent with a minimum of AED 1 and vary by category, reaching 15 percent for apparel, books and home. Fulfilment by Amazon adds a per unit fee depending on size and price, from AED 5.50 for small envelopes to over AED 40 for oversize items. Storage is AED 2 per cubic foot per month. All figures exclude VAT. Verify current rates on Amazon's UAE pricing page, since schedules change.

What does noon charge sellers?

Commission runs roughly 5 to 27 percent by category, with electronics at the low end and fashion around 15 to 20 percent. Fulfilled by Noon adds roughly SAR 8 to 15 per order for items under one kilogram, plus storage charged per cubic metre. Noon publishes less detail than Amazon, and sellers are directed to Seller Lab for current rates, so confirm your category's figures before committing inventory.

Is cash on delivery still necessary in the UAE?

It is shrinking but not gone, at roughly 25 to 30 percent of transactions, down from about 40 percent in 2022. The question is not whether to offer it but what it costs you. Cash on delivery orders return to origin at around 20 percent against about 6 percent for prepaid, and each rejected order costs AED 25 to 50 in two way shipping. Many UAE stores would be more profitable offering cash on delivery selectively rather than universally.

Should I sell on a marketplace or build my own store?

Both, with different jobs. Marketplaces bring customers and charge 25 to 35 percent in total channel cost for products like apparel. Your own store charges under 3 percent in payment processing but you pay to acquire every customer. The deciding factor is repeat purchase rate: if customers buy once and compare on price, marketplaces usually win. If they buy repeatedly or choose your brand deliberately, your own store wins over twelve months.

The short version

The UAE has no local Shopify because it never needed one. The platform decision there is settled, and the real decision is channel.

Model it as total cost per order rather than headline fee, include the cash on delivery return rate, and judge your own store on twelve month customer value rather than first order margin. That is the comparison that matters, and most sellers never run it.

Sources and references

Marketplace fees, gateway rates and platform pricing change. Verify current figures with Amazon Seller Central, noon Seller Lab and your gateway before building a financial model on them.

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