Amazon Rebrands Its Middle Eastern Marketplace Souq

“Amazon is all about scale, and understands the economic leverage for its business from investing behind one brand… They also understand the negative dilutive potential of investing in multiple brands globally, especially online brands where shoppers are less loyal…”

Since its acquisition by Amazon, popular United Arab Emirates-based e-commerce platform Souq has grown steadily over the past year. On May 1st, 2019, Amazon gave Souq.com a new appearance and has since redirected all Souq users to a rebranded site, Amazon.ae. Featured in Retail Dive, Vivaldi Partner Pete Killian shares insight into the strategic reasoning behind this name change and explains why such a rebrand would not have made sense for other Amazon subsidiaries, such as Whole Foods.

Will Souq’s rebrand cause confusion among users? Or will this changeover give Amazon more of an edge over other international e-commerce giants?