Sharjah council to build 1,000 online stores for women-owned businesses

Sharjah Business Women Council will hand 1,000 of its members a complete online store, built and paid for, under a one-year agreement with Packman Portal LLC. The programme is valued at AED3.6 million.

Each store carries a price tag of AED3,600 a year. A member gets a dedicated website, a payment gateway, a product-management system, an administrative dashboard and customisable design options, along with instruction and technical help after launch.

The intent is to strip out the two things that most often stop a small business from selling online: the upfront cost and the technical setup. Maryam Bin Al Shaikh, director of the council, and Mohamed Al Rashed, co-founder and chief strategy officer at Packman Portal, signed the memorandum of understanding.

Bin Al Shaikh said plenty of entrepreneurs can build a good product. Finding customers is the harder part. A professional digital presence, she argued, is now essential, and the council's aim is to remove the obstacles that keep businesswomen from reaching their potential.

She also framed the programme as more than a launch pad. The council wants participants to leave with skills that keep producing value once the year ends. More competitive women-led companies, in her account, lift Sharjah's wider business scene as well as their own operations.

There is an incentive to keep selling. Any business that completes at least 365 customer orders in its first year gets a second year of store services free.

Abdulaziz Almulhem, Packman Portal's chief executive and founder, said the company built its platform in the UAE and that access to digital tools should not depend on where an entrepreneur starts. The partnership fits an ambition to serve the UAE first, then the region, then international markets.

Workshops alongside the software

Technology is only half of it. Packman will run practical sessions on entrepreneurship, digital commerce, store setup and management, inventory and product administration, digital marketing, customer service, performance optimisation and sustainable growth. The two organisations also plan awareness campaigns and are weighing further joint work to raise women-owned businesses' share of Sharjah's digital economy.

Packman's platform extends past storefronts into payment integration, inventory, order fulfilment, warehousing, shipping and marketing. It also uses artificial intelligence to build and organise shops.

E-commerce is a growing slice of UAE business. The national market reached $8.1 billion, or about AED29.8 billion, in 2025, and was expected to grow 10 to 15 percent a year through 2026, according to ECDB.

A wider push in Sharjah

The council has been at this since 2002. A 2023 review counted 2,342 members and linked it to more than 2,300 successful projects, with support running across retail, e-commerce, hospitality, healthcare, perfumes, jewellery, publishing, media and the arts. Training in artificial intelligence and renewable energy was already part of the offer. In May 2026 the council opened a business hub at Al Mamsha and launched Haseelah, a platform that connects members with specialists and mentors.

Other institutions are running parallel programmes. Sheraa has a membership platform aimed at supporting 1,000 ventures and facilitating AED50 million in deals by 2030, with a target of more than 50 youth-led businesses and 1,000 jobs; its services include mentorship, funding, licensing discounts, advisory sessions and investor introductions. Its resilience fund is mobilising up to AED5 million, drew more than 330 applicants in its first cycle and selected over 60 for grants or in-kind support.

In June 2026 the Sharjah Economic Development Department added three months of incentives: late-payment penalties waived on micro licences, including e-commerce and Eitimad permits, issuance and renewal fees halved, and discounts on selected industrial, promotional and nursery licences.