Diaspora experience has prompted Palestinians to strengthen relations and opportunities that link them with their homeland. Although they seem simple to some, they are valuable to expatriates who are eager to share special occasions and holidays with their families and beloved ones.
Yasmin Dahman, 32 years old, has tried her best to find a way to take part in the occasions of her friends with simplest means: a present or a greeting card. As a result and under the obstacles facing sending and receiving packages to and from Gaza Strip, Yasmin thought about establishing Gift Box.
In March of 2015, with the assistance of her family, Yasmin was able to found Gift Box, which is an e-store that helps expatriates around the world send gifts to their families in Palestine.
Dahman, a graduate of the Department of Telecommunications Engineering, explains that the website allows customers to select an appropriate gift from a list of different gifts, and then the team prepares and packs it at the agreed time with the customer. She points out that the site works the same way as any electronic stores known around the world. Yasmin also shows that they are keen to surprise the recipient by attaching a greeting card with the gift.
In spite of the obstacles faced by the team in spreading the idea locally, Yasmin does not hide her happiness about the spontaneous reactions of the customers after receiving a gift from their families. Also, she adds that the team lacks the experience in e-commerce since they are from different educational backgrounds, irrelevant to Trade Forum. Therefore, the team has headed down to one of the business incubators in Gaza Strip in order to get the guidance and expertise in the field of marketing and e-commerce as well as financial support.
Amongst 1000 projects that competed in receiving applications stage last July, Gift Box project has received funding from the project “Bithra” (Seeds, in English) to support small emerging projects.
In detail, an official of Business Development in Seed, Esraa Musa, says, “With the beginning of the launch of Seed project and in sorting applications stage, Gift Box drew the attention of investors because of the uniqueness of the idea and the high technology found in the site of Gift box.ps which qualifies it for competing globally, as well as the added value provided by the project which is targeting expatriates.”
She adds, “The owners of Gift Box project, with an innovative way to gain profits, have been able to overcome restrictions on e-commerce and difficulties of bank transfers in Gaza Strip.”
Musa expects that the project will achieve a large expansion worldwide, adding that “The idea has achieved good revenue since it is the first and only one in Palestine, and due to its large market targeting expatriates all over the world, making it one of the most candidate projects for investments at the short term.”
The project “Seed” was funded by the Islamic Development Bank in Jeddah, through the United Nations Development Programme- UNDP through economic empowerment programme- DEEP. This project, which seeks to support small Palestinian companies, is also being implemented through the Business and Technology Incubator at the Islamic University of Gaza.
