By A. Stephanie
Rushdi Siddiqui
Barely five months since its launch last October, and Zilzar, the self-styled e-commerce “Muslim lifestyle marketplace” has set a target to get 1 million vendors across the globe on board by 2020.
Based in both the United States of America and Malaysia, the company expects this growth to be fuelled by the purchasing power of some 500 million Muslim youth worldwide.
Zilzar Technologies Sdn Bhd co-founder and CEO Rushdi Siddiqui said the platform is focusing on vendors, who are mostly in the Asean region, Australia and New Zealand.
He added: “The buyers meanwhile are in the Gulf states.This will kick off with B2B (business to business) lead generation, followed by B2B with a payment gateway and finally B2C in a few months.
“By year five, we hope to have a million vendors, and we will also be launching Zilzar Life – an issues and discussion forum through which we hope to attract 15 million subscribers by 2020,” he remarked.
The US$1.3 trillion (RM4.8 trillion) figure for global halal trade that is touted by Thomson Reuters and the DinarStandard study only accounts for plays between multinational corporations not SMEs (small medium enterprises),” he said.
He added that the challenge is getting SMEs in this global space beyond the domestic play. This will be spurred at first by low-hanging fruits such as travel, fashion and cosmetics.
He explained: “Muslim consumers spent US$137 billion (RM501.5 billion) in travel alone in 2012, and this excludes expenditure on umrah and haj pilgrimages.
“Catalysts for growth in the Muslim lifestyle space are the same as those in China that helped Alibaba take off: rising per capita income, increased internet penetration, lower broadband cost, as well as better security for online payment and mobile commerce.
“If you look at the Muslim youth below 30 years old, which number 500 million globally – this is the target market. This is the middle class in the wings. If you plan for them in the next 15 years, this is where Muslim consumerism is going to drive trade,” he said.
Rushdi, an Islamic finance advisor for Thomson Reuters, remarked the demand for halal is driven by its ubiquity, compared to the other Islamic flagship product – Islamic finance.
“Halal is present in almost all of the United Nations’ 194 member countries, Islamic finance is only in about 90. Halal is in all the Brics (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) countries, Islamic finance is not.
“This platform is about Muslim consumers, which is the next Brics story – a growth market with growth demographics.
“So halal for me is the connectivity through the masses. Following on that, Zilzar is a global marketplace, the counterpart of Alibaba in the Muslim lifestyle space,” he commented.
Merchants in this space, are largely based in three sectors: food and beverage, cosmetics and pharmaceuticals. In line with the halal focus, there is a vetting process for them to prove that they are certified by a recognised body and also renew it when their halal certification is expired.
This is in line with the platform’s dependence on integrity, he said.
Rushdi noted: “For Zilzar, in those three silos, there has to be certification involved. Of course, there are other sectors involved such as fashion, travel, and logistics – but these don’t require certification.
Vaseehar Hassan Abdul Razack
“The key issue is integrity, so there has to be integrity among its founders. I come from an Islamic finance and halal background, Zilzar chairman Vaseehar Hassan Abdul Razack founded RHB Islamic Bank.
“That’s the first level of integrity. The second resides in the platform itself – what companies are populating the platform? And then the products. Integrity is not something we can outsource or contract; it’s a commitment to buyer safety,” he added.
There are 137 halal certification bodies globally. The majority of those are recognised by Malaysian Islamic Development Department (Jakim), Islamic Religious Council of Singapore (Muis), Islamic Food and Nutrition Council of America (Ifanca), Majelis Ulama Indonesia (Mui) and the South African National Halal Authority (Sanha).
“From that point of view, these are the major players. But halal for SMEs is a domestic play. So Zilzar will be looking at certification bodies on a local angle, Jakim certification for Malaysian entities for instance.
“There may be a number of certification bodies, but those who have been utilised by more vendors gain more credibility,” he said.
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