If anyone can now set up an online store, what value does an e-commerce platform offer beyond store creation?

E-commerce no longer begins and ends with setting up a store, displaying products, and waiting for orders. Behind every successful purchase lies a network of services, decisions, and operations working together: from payment processing and collection to advertising and customer acquisition, order management, shipping, and post-sale service.

As commerce becomes more widespread, this network expands, and the merchant's ability to manage its details becomes an essential part of their capacity to compete and grow.

This shift did not happen all at once. Over the past ten years, e-commerce has evolved from individual, resource-limited experiments into a more mature market, where tech platforms, service providers, and specialized companies intersect, and where customer expectations are constantly changing.

In his conversation with the (Fi LEAP) podcast, Mr. Nawaf Hariri reflects on part of this journey, discussing the transformations e-commerce has witnessed and how its infrastructure might take shape over the coming years. Through his experience, a broader picture emerges: The future of commerce will not be determined by stores alone, but by the ecosystem that makes operating, developing, and scaling them possible.

When setting up a store was the biggest challenge

When Mr. Nawaf recalls the beginnings of e-commerce in 2016, he remembers a vastly different scene from what merchants are used to today. An entrepreneur would often start by creating an Instagram account, call it an online store, and then attempt to convince customers to buy from it.

However, the issue was not merely displaying products; it was about the trust surrounding the entire experience.

The customer would wonder: To whom am I transferring this money? What if they disappear after receiving it? On the other hand, the merchant didn't always know whether the customer was serious about completing the order or would actually accept it upon delivery. The result was additional risks and costs borne by both parties.

In addition, managing a single order was an exhausting process. Mr. Nawaf describes an experience that required about 13 steps to fulfill one order, during which the merchant had to communicate with the customer, follow up on order details, coordinate with the shipping company, and handle other manual tasks.

These details were not merely an operational nuisance; they constrained the venture's ability to grow. As the volume of orders increased, so did the tasks the merchant had to carry out manually.

Here emerges an important point in the evolution of e-commerce: the primary need was not for a prettier store or a more complex interface, but for an infrastructure that makes selling reliable, operations simpler, and growth possible.

From the checkout experience to the infrastructure supporting commerce

When we discuss the evolution of e-commerce, we often think of the visible shifts for the customer: store design, product display methods, and the variety of payment options. Yet a significant part of this evolution took place in operations that the customer does not directly see.

Take the checkout experience as an example. Mr. Nawaf points out that customers were used to creating a new account, entering an email and password, and then filling out numerous fields before completing the order. In contrast, Salla enabled an experience based on entering a mobile number and receiving a verification code to complete the purchase. This step may seem small when viewed in isolation, but it reflects a larger principle: minimizing the steps separating the customer from completing the transaction.

The same applies to integrating with courier companies, facilitating payments, and managing collections. Every process becomes easier when the merchant is not forced to jump between separate tools or execute a long series of manual procedures.

From this, we can understand how the role of e-commerce platforms has expanded. They are no longer required simply to provide a place for merchants to display their products, but rather to offer an interconnected experience that helps them manage broader aspects of their business activity.

Why are commerce platforms moving toward building integrated ecosystems?

One of the most notable points Nawaf addressed in the interview was Salla's strategic move to expand its services by acquiring specialized companies, rather than relying on building everything in-house.

He spoke about Salla's acquisition of an ad-tech company, which subsequently became Salla Ads, and its acquisition of Paylink to strengthen the financial services ecosystem for merchants and enable them to accept payments locally.

An acquisition may superficially seem like a decision related to expansion or adding a new service, but Nawaf's perspective looks further: having founders and teams who understand the sector, possess accumulated expertise, and maintain a passion for continued building represents significant value for the company.

This opens the door to understanding a different way of building technological ecosystems. Instead of starting from scratch every time, a company can gather specialized teams with deep domain knowledge around it, working to develop them within a broader ecosystem.

This approach gains greater importance in e-commerce because a merchant's needs do not stop at creating a store. They need to reach customers, manage payments and collections, optimize the checkout experience, and develop their operations as the business scales.

This does not mean that every platform must own all services itself, nor that acquisition is the only route to expansion. Rather, it illustrates that building a commerce ecosystem requires more than developing a set of technical features; it requires bringing together the capabilities and expertise that make the merchant's journey more comprehensive.

The growth of commerce opens a new market for ancillary services

There is another observation in Mr. Nawaf's remarks that warrants attention: the growth in the number of merchants was not accompanied by a corresponding growth in the number of agencies, developers, and service providers capable of supporting them.

Here lies a gap between the ease of starting a business and the need for the expertise required to scale it.

A merchant might be able to set up their store on their own, but they may later need help optimizing its interface, developing ad campaigns, analyzing performance, streamlining operations, or transitioning to a larger phase of growth.

This is not solely a technical problem. Managing a business combines many responsibilities: customer service, inventory tracking, coordinating with couriers, product development, and marketing management. It is difficult for a single person to handle all these responsibilities with the same level of efficiency as the enterprise scales.

Mr. Nawaf believes there is a significant opportunity for partners and service providers who can help merchants transition from the launch phase to growth, and ultimately to scaling.

Remarkably, he does not view artificial intelligence as a substitute that eliminates the need for such expertise; rather, he speaks of its potential to streamline certain tasks, while the need persists for professionals whom merchants prefer to rely on to enhance their stores and execute what they require.

This idea points to an essential aspect of the sector's future: the growth of e-commerce does not merely mean an increase in the number of stores; it generates growing demand for the services and expertise that help these stores sustain themselves.

Technology is shifting: from generic tools to tailored experiences

If recent years have focused on making digital tools available to merchants, the next phase may shift toward making these tools more adaptable to the needs of each user.

Mr. Nawaf describes a transformation in the way software is built. In the past, tools were designed to suit a broad segment of users, and each user was expected to adapt to how the tool functioned. With the advancement of AI technologies and the ease of building solutions, expectations have changed: The tool is supposed to adapt to the user, not the user always having to adapt to the tool.

This shift goes beyond changing an interface layout or adding new options. Personalization involves understanding the user's context, needs, and data, and then delivering a more fitting experience for them.

In his discussion, Mr. Nawaf gives the example of storefront development. Some merchants might not be able to afford high costs for bespoke modifications, whereas AI technologies can make executing some of these customizations easier and more accessible.

Yet the broader value lies not merely in reducing the cost of implementing a specific modification; it lies in the potential for tools to become more flexible, allowing the merchant to obtain an experience tailored to their venture's needs rather than settling for one-size-fits-all solutions.

When answers become more important than interfaces

Among the changes Mr. Nawaf also anticipates is the evolution of voice interaction, transitioning from an auxiliary feature to a primary medium for interacting with applications and services.

Instead of a user searching for a product, opening menus, and navigating between pages until finding what they want, they may soon be able to express their request directly and receive the right result.

Mr. Nawaf envisions an experience where a user can use their voice to order a specific product and set its delivery time, without needing to go through all the traditional steps inside the app.

This vision implies that change may not be limited to improving storefronts; it could extend to how the shopping experience itself is designed. Instead of a merchant focusing solely on arranging pages and buttons, they will need to consider how systems understand customer requests and deliver appropriate answers and results to them.

Nonetheless, Mr. Nawaf links this shift to the advancement of technology and its ability to better understand humans. Voice interaction still requires improvements to become more natural and reliable across various contexts.

What is hard to replicate when technology becomes accessible to all?

With the accelerated pace of solution-building and the proliferation of tools that facilitate copying products and services, certain competitive elements become less effective at shielding a business from competitors.

Mr. Nawaf explains that replicating a website or an idea may be relatively easy, but building the trust that makes a customer rely on a store or a service is entirely different. It requires time, accumulated experiences, learning from failures, and continuous improvement.

Here lies an important paradox: the easier it becomes to build solutions, the more critical those aspects become that cannot be accomplished simply by copying a design or using a tool.

For a merchant, this can start with product quality, attention to detail, keeping promises, easy communication, and the ability to deliver an experience that makes the customer want to return.

A competitor might offer the same product, match the price, or copy the marketing approach, but they cannot easily replicate the relationship that has been built with customers.

Therefore, the ease of using technology should not be an excuse to settle for launching a quick project, but rather an opportunity to direct effort toward building genuine value that is difficult to replace.

How does a merchant create value that does not depend solely on the product?

This concept becomes even clearer when the conversation shifts from the future of technology to the merchant's decisions when selecting their venture and products.

Mr. Nawaf advises merchants not to merely take an existing product in the market and sell it as is, but to ask themselves: What value can I add? And why would the customer choose me over another competitor?

Competing solely on trending products can be short-lived. A competitor can quickly identify the product source and offer the exact same item shortly after, turning the competition into a race to the bottom on price or reach.

Added value, on the other hand, can stem from different details, such as delivery speed, gift-worthy packaging, bundling multiple products together, or enhancing the fulfillment experience.

Mr. Nawaf also highlights the importance of testing the market before committing significant capital. Rather than committing to high costs from the outset, a merchant can validate the concept with limited resources, observe customer response, and make decisions based on what they learn.

In another example from the interview, Nawaf references the experience of a store whose team worked on developing a product for more than a year and a half, iterating through over 20 prototypes before arriving at the final product.

This does not mean every venture requires this much time or this number of iterations, but the experience demonstrates the importance of testing, refining, and paying attention to detail prior to launch. As Nawaf explains, the customer ultimately senses the product's quality and the care invested in its development.

The future of commerce is bigger than a storefront

When considering these transformations collectively, it becomes difficult to reduce the future of e-commerce to a single technology or a solitary trend.

Commerce evolves across interconnected layers: an operational infrastructure that makes ordering easier, smoother payments, services that help merchants reach customers, tools that adapt to their needs, and new interaction modes that make purchasing more natural.

At the same time, certain elements remain that cannot be reduced to technology: understanding the customer, product quality, trust, and the ability to deliver value worthy of being chosen.

The way stores are created and managed may change, and the prominence of traditional interfaces may recede as voice interaction and intelligent systems evolve. Yet the question that will continually confront every merchant is: What makes the customer choose me, trust me, and return to me?

A store is simply the starting point; sustainable commerce requires a comprehensive ecosystem working behind it, alongside genuine value that the customer experiences every time they engage with the brand.