Tunisia Internet Users And E-Commerce Survey Report 2008

Arab Advisors GroupA new Arab Advisors Group major survey of Internet users in Tunisia revealed that 36.4% of Internet users in Tunisia use e-commerce. Based on the survey results, the Arab Advisors Group estimates that Tunisia’s Internet users spent US$ 132.7 million during the past 12 months in e-commerce transactions.

The survey report, ‘Tunisia Internet users and e-commerce Survey 2008’ was released on August 20, 2008 and provides the results of a major comprehensive online survey of Internet users in Tunisia. The survey covered the Internet usage, e commerce and cellular usage and habits of the Internet users in Tunisia. The survey field work was conducted between May and July 2008.

Respondents were randomly targeted by receiving an email shot in their inbox to ask them to fill the survey in cooperation with reputable mail list providers in Tunisia. The survey report includes online replies from 1,093 respondents. Quality control checks and personal validation were conducted by Arab Advisors Group’s team. The survey was conducted on the general Internet population, including both genders and all age groups across Tunisia. The online survey yields a confidence level of 99% with a margin of error of less than 4%.

According to the survey results, 84.0% of Internet users in Tunisia have Internet access at home, 75.8% use Internet at work, while 24.0% use public hot spots. Naturally, access methods overlapped.

While the survey covered Internet users, it also probed the reasons behind why other members of the same households surveyed do not use the Internet. Based on the feedback of Internet users, computer illiteracy, lack of interest, lack of a perceived need to use the Internet and being too young to use the Internet are the main reasons for keeping non-Internet users in Tunisia from using the Internet.

The survey also revealed e-commerce adoption in Tunisia. 36.4% of Tunisia Internet users shop online or through their mobile phone. The Arab Advisors Group estimated the number of e-commerce users in Tunisia to be over 416000 and total e-commerce expenditure during the past year to be US$ 132.7 million.

“The majority of e-commerce users make electronic payments through credit cards. 64.8% of e-commerce users use credit cards as their e-commerce method of payment. Following credit cards, 27.4% of e-commerce users use prepaid Internet shopping card for their payments. ” Mr. Hussam Barhoush, Arab Advisors senior research analyst wrote in the survey report.

This survey report can be purchased from the Arab Advisors Group, who can provide a copy of the report’s Table of Contents and the survey questions. The survey report includes 70 pages and 82 detailed exhibits.

Mezed, Product Auctions Differently

MezedMezed is a Tunisian auction site that recently surfaced into the arena of online startups in Tunisia.

A number of Tunisian websites have already attempted to try and push through the idea of online auctions in Tunisia, get it popular, and attempt to make some money out of it. Examples off the top of my head are sites like: MoncefBay and EchriBay.
A lot of these services hang on for a while before fading away into Tunisian internet history. It just seems that the auction model just hasn’t taken off and worked up to now, for one reason or another.

Websites that approach the whole buying/selling thing through small classified ads seem to be doing a little better maybe, but nothing big enough to come close to real e-commerce yet.

Back to Mezed, they take on a new and different approach to the whole auctions system, taking out the sellers and auctioning off partner products themselves. Their system revolves solely around buyers competing to get the auctioned product at a cheap price.

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