A decade ago, a brand selling to Arab consumers in Israel could treat its website as an extra: the money changed hands in shops. No longer. According to a study by Google Israel and Isracard, online purchases made up about 15%1 of purchase turnover in the Arab sector in 2023, against 2%2 a decade earlier. A survey by the Israel Internet Association (ISOC-IL) adds the consumer side: almost every Arab internet user owns a smartphone and uses WhatsApp, the most widely used app among them. Here is what the verified data says, where it stops, and what to do with it.

A decade of growth from a low base

The study, published in early 2024 to mark a decade of the ShoppingIL community, put online commerce across Israel at 20%3 of sales turnover, up from 4%4 a decade earlier. The whole market started low, and both shares rose steeply. The Arab share is still below the national one, and in percentage points the gap has widened. What has changed is scale: online buying is now a real part of Arab-sector spending, not far below the national rate. The comparison is approximate, since the national figure is a share of sales turnover and the Arab one a share of purchase turnover, so treat it as a rough guide, not an exact gap.

Before the number goes into a deck, know its limits. It is a share of turnover, not of shoppers: it tells you how much of the money moves online, not how many people buy there. It is also a commercial study, reported in the press, that does not give the size of its Arab sub-sample. It shows direction, not a precise measurement, and the plan should say so.

Use it as a benchmark for your own data. If Arab customers make up a much smaller share of your online sales than of your in-store sales, your online shop is not working for them; it does not mean they don’t shop online.

Still, the conclusion does not hang on the decimal point: a market where a real share of spending already goes online cannot sit in the plan only as a campaign that sends people to branches.

Who already shops online, and who doesn’t yet

The ISOC-IL survey, whose report came out in May 2024, covered a representative sample of Arab adults who use the internet. In it, 51%5 of respondents shop online and 53%6 pay bills online. According to the report, the rates in Jewish society are much higher, though its summary gives no figure to compare.

The base matters: these are internet users, so the figure must not be presented as a share of all Arab citizens. It also says something about growth. The respondents who don’t yet shop online are already online. The job is not to bring them onto the internet but to give them a good reason to buy through it, and to buy from you.

The bill-payment figure matters as much as the shopping one: paying online is already familiar to most respondents. In our view, the barrier to a first purchase is less about technology than about whether the shop looks trustworthy, speaks the customer’s language and says up front what happens if something goes wrong.

Nor is the market uniform. The report found that Bedouin respondents in the Negev used social networks, and banking and financial services, less than respondents elsewhere. A national Arabic campaign should read the results by region, not the average.

Mobile first

Among Arab respondents, 93%7 own a smartphone, close to the rate in Jewish society. Computers are another story: only 28%8 own a desktop, and the report shows a far wider gap with Jewish society on computers than on phones.

The connection matters too: 25.2%9 of respondents connect at home over a cellular network, through a smartphone or a mobile modem, and the report estimates that a considerable share browse at speeds now considered slow.

The data does not say which device the purchase is made on. It does say which device almost everyone has, and what connection many rely on. For Arab shoppers, your shop is first of all a phone screen. A heavy product page, a long payment form or a verification code lost when switching apps all cost sales that never close.

Arabic adds another layer. A site translated into Arabic whose checkout stays in Hebrew, a form that rejects a name or address in Arabic script, or a confirmation that arrives in Hebrew all break the flow at the most sensitive moment: payment.

WhatsApp is the service desk

In the survey published in 2024, 93%10 of Arab internet users said they use WhatsApp, the most widely used app in the survey. That does not mean they want to buy inside WhatsApp. It tells you where they are easy to reach, and where talking to a brand needs no new download.

Online shopping has moments when the customer needs an answer: will this size fit, when will the parcel arrive, how do I send it back? A brand that answers then on WhatsApp, in Arabic and within a reasonable time, takes friction out of every stage of the funnel. A brand that points to a “contact us” form or a Hebrew-speaking call centre hands that friction to the customer.

In practice: a WhatsApp Business account with a catalogue, Arabic message templates for order confirmations and delivery updates, and a person who steps in when the automated replies stop helping. The WhatsApp button belongs on the product page and at checkout, not only in the footer.

What the data doesn’t tell us yet

We found no recent, verified data on preferred payment methods in Arab society, on online basket size or on the sector’s leading categories. Some circulating numbers are years old, some answer a different question from the one they are quoted for, and some have no clear source, so we left them out.

For marketers, assumptions about cash, instalments or delivery to Arab towns are hypotheses to test, not facts. You can test them quickly and cheaply in your own shop data, broken down by language and region: compare checkout abandonment between the Arabic and Hebrew versions of the site, check which payment methods orders from Arab towns actually use, and measure real delivery times by region.

What it means for marketers

The data points to an audience that partly shops online already, almost all of which owns a smartphone and uses WhatsApp. These are the steps we would start with:

  • Design the shop for mobile, and test it on a cellular connection. Before spending on media, go through the product page and checkout on a mid-range phone, over a cellular connection and entirely in Arabic, including error messages, verification and the confirmation email.
  • Put WhatsApp into the funnel, staffed in Arabic. Pre-purchase questions, order confirmation, delivery arrangements and returns. Set a response-time target and measure it as you would any sales channel.
  • Measure the Arab market separately. With this much of its spending already online, it deserves its own e-commerce targets: sales by site language, by region and by traffic source, with the Negev tracked on its own.
  • Target the first-time buyer. Respondents who don’t yet shop online are already online. Clear returns and delivery terms in Arabic, on the product page itself rather than only in the terms and conditions, help them over the first purchase.
  • Test before you assume. Offer the common payment methods, check with your courier that it delivers to addresses in the towns where you advertise, and track abandoned baskets by region.