DUBAI- Family Souk Ventures Ltd., a premier e-retailer and distributor of baby and toddler products throughout the MENA region, announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire bubsboutique.com, one of the region’s leading online baby and toddler boutiques. Founded in 2009, bubsboutique.com firmly established itself as a long-term competitor in the baby and parenting product sector, with numerous unique and exclusive brands sourced from all over the world whilst servicing a rapidly growing customer base throughout the MENA region.
“bubsboutique.com is run by two passionate and talented mothers who have been consistently dedicated to building a high quality brand name in the region – they are passionate about the same thing we are which is to create a leading and distinctive online shopping experience for parents looking to source unique products from around the world, whilst offering exceptional customer service” stated Miranda Hilton, CEO Chief Mum of Family Souk Ventures. “Combining the phenomenal management team that created bubsboutique.com, with our existing team at BabySouk.com, will substantially accelerate our combined growth initiatives and extend our reach to significantly more parents throughout the MENA region much more rapidly. Equally important is that such consolidation of competitors in our online sector exhibits the maturation of the overall market and increases the value of these businesses and their respective brands”.
“After looking at ways to grow and extend our business with driven partners that share our ideals, we thought that Family Souk Ventures was the perfect fit for us,” said Paula Harrington and Kirsten Fairfield, co-founders and owners of bubsboutique.com. “They have a very strong logistics platform and have grown rapidly over the last 3 years. BabySouk.com and bubsboutique.com were founded at a similar time during the mid-point of the 2000-2010 decade ― a time when e-commerce gained significant traction throughout the entire MENA region. We have very complimentary brands and product offerings, and more importantly common values and corporate cultures based on shared passions and genuine beliefs that the market, in particular parents and parents to be, need a customer-focused high-quality retailer whose products have been very carefully selected by other parents, and then delivered with speed and convenience to the parents’ front door the very next day; we’re really excited that our rapidly growing team will be able to extend our customer service offering and brands further throughout the MENA region as we drive our growth”.
Miranda Hilton continued “The online retail market for baby, toddler and parenting products runs across a broad spectrum of consumer options, and is a rapidly growing part of the US$20B+ overall MENA online retail market. On one end of the spectrum we have high-volume, brand-agnostic low-margin Amazon-like retailers that appeal to a certain consumer demographic. On the other end of the market spectrum, there are selective online boutique retailers with deep and focused brand/channel driven strategies. Our objective is to be the market-leading baby, toddler, and parenting product online retail boutique in the MENA region”.
BabySouk.com and bubsboutique.com will continue to operate in parallel until Fall 2014 so as to manage a smooth and seamless integration and rebranding of both businesses over the Summer 2014 period. The combined entity will start operating under the name BabySouk.com from September 2014 under a new , offering many unique features and a very robust shopping experience for parents throughout the MENA region. The synergies in both product selection and corporate culture that are apparent now, and will also develop over time, will be the keys to generating the next phase of growth.