Cross-border expansion advisory for UK and EU brands entering Amazon UAE and Saudi Arabia — and Gulf-region brands expanding into Amazon UK and US. Cultural positioning, platform strategy, compliance, partners.
Amazon UAE has products from roughly 50,000 businesses serving 10 million customers — one of the least crowded major Amazon marketplaces, on a platform whose stated goal is 100,000 businesses selling on Amazon.ae by 2026. Saudi Arabia’s e-commerce market is projected to grow from $24.7B in 2024 to $68.9B by 2033.
Compare the direction of travel at home: Western marketplaces added just 165,000 new sellers in 2025 — a decade low — while fees passed 50% of revenue and the top 2% of sellers captured over half of all third-party sales. Mature markets are a knife fight for share. The Gulf is still an allocation decision.
We operate Gulf engagements from London with quarterly in-region presence: a UAE free-zone entity, bilingual working through trusted partners in Riyadh, and Vision 2030 programme alignment (Saudi Made, Monsha’at) for Gulf-domiciled brands. Both directions — West into UAE/KSA, Gulf brands into Amazon UK and US.
Data: Amazon.ae ≈50,000 businesses, 100,000-by-2026 goal per Amazon MENA / Dubai D33 announcements; KSA e-commerce $24.7B (2024) → $68.9B (2033), 12.1% CAGR per Renub Research; US online retail +5.4% in 2025 per US Census Bureau; UK online retail ≈+3.5% per IMRG/eMarketer; seller data per Marketplace Pulse (2025 Year in Review).
The route West-to-Gulf, drawn live: a market growing at 12.1% a year with a fraction of the competition — and it works in the other direction too.
First movers in open categories set the terms the next entrant pays. Model your category before someone else does.
Model My Gulf Entry