

The CashBasha founders. (Images via Cashbasha)

According to a 2014 Payfortreport, 80 percent of ecommerce transactions in the region occur through cash on delivery (COD).

While COD is a friendly model for consumers, it puts ecommerce merchants at great risk when buyers don’t end up paying for goods they have purchased.

Creating a fairer model that appeals to both the buyer and seller, and particularly foreign sellers, is the pain point that drove Jordanian entrepreneur Fouad Jeryes and Syrian entrepreneur Sinan Taifour to launch Cashbasha in Jordan in 2013.

Cashbasha describe themselves as a “commerce technology” company that facilitates ecommerce by shifting COD into a cash “before” delivery model. This means that money gets collected by the courier and is then transferred to the merchant before the product is delivered. Thus, if the buyer doesn’t end up paying, it would cause smaller losses to the courier and Cashbasha; and the merchant remains free of risk.

This practice also helps to avoid the need to establish a storehouse for hosting all the products that have not been paid for.

Cashbasha’s model is to work as this medium between Arab consumers and foreign sites that do not accept local cards or cash and do not ship to the region.

Cashbasha currently hosts Amazon as its only merchant. “Our system works with any [merchant], but we chose Amazon because [a high percentage] of the worldwide online purchases come from Amazon,” said Jeryes.

Knowing what to expect from online shopping

Cashbasha offers two features that make the buying process easier, distinguishing it from other similar platforms.

Buyers do not need to use the service through a personal account, which is usually required on other platforms like Shop and Ship or Egypt’s edfa3ly.com. Users can simply complete a transaction as a guest, with no attached bank account.



During their testing period Jeryes himself ordered 400 packages.

Secondly and most importantly, customers don’t need to worry about estimating customs and shipment fees. Cashbasha gives users a fixed price depending on an inbuilt algorithm. If the fees end up exceeding their estimate, Cashbasha will be responsible for paying the difference.

Today, Cashbasha collects money from the buyer through the ‘at your door’ service; it has also offered the ‘at a store’ service but has not expanded upon it.