We believe that every moment in life is special and deserves to be Celebrated with the people we love. Celebrating occasions brings us together, strengthens our relationships and enhances the quality of our life!

But planning celebrations can be stressful! Whether you’re getting a gift or throwing a party, It’s not easy, right from planning to execution.

So, we created your one-stop celebration shop. Shugah allows you to order cakes, desserts, flowers, gifts, balloons, party-stuff, event-related services or a combination of them by connecting you to your favorite bakeries, party shops, and event planners. All conveniently delivered to your or your loved one’s doorstep anywhere in UAE. We are a one-stop shop for all celebration needs, from getting a gift and throwing a party to simply satisfying a sugar craving.

We are a curated marketplace that is easy, personal and fun to use due to a streamlined process that curates the customer journey by catering to choice, customization and convenience.

Using our technology, we created an automated process including three interlinked platforms. The state-of-the-art React Native app/website for customers, the back-end portal for vendors, and a route management app for drivers.

Once you pick the products and services you like from various vendors, they can use their portal to accept or reject the order. The system then automatically assigns the delivery to allocated drivers who update the status on their driver app as they complete the routes. The user gets to track the order status from pickup to the drop-off point and receives constant live updates.

Our end-to-end delivery model is suitable for transporting cakes, flowers, balloons of all sizes, & temperature requirements.

75% of the incoming orders get assigned to the dedicated delivery fleet, while 25% to external delivery partners. This model allows us to tackle high/low seasons and cater to popular hours without needing to increase the fleet or reject orders. The model allows us to minimize unnecessary expenditure, reduce idle hours and provide backup solutions for vehicle break-down or other emergencies.

But we are more than just a delivery platform and offer various intelligent features which give us an edge in the market as we look to go beyond being just an e-commerce store, such as
• Personalized calendar to record events manually or via integration along with reminders (e.g. via E-mail and notification)
• Catering to customized cake and party-related requests (e.g. Customize My Cake & Plan My Party)
• Free party tools for Virality (e.g. E-cards, E-invites)
• Discovery features (e.g. categories and tags as well as price and rating)
• Gift reward points to encourage customer loyalty (e.g. for every order or recommendation)

Due to the vast spread of demographics within UAE, the Celebrations market size adoption includes cultural and seasonal occasions such as Christmas, New Year, Eid, National Day and many more. As well as personal occasions such as birthdays, anniversaries, etc. for which there are estimated 5-10 celebrations for friends and family in a user's annual term.

Our industry can be split into two markets:
• Gifting:
Includes Cakes, Desserts, Flowers, Balloons and other Gifts or a combination of them for any occasion. Our platform and delivery solution is geared to cater to any gifting requests, whether at short notice or pre-booked for a future date/time, and conveniently delivers to their own or their loved ones' doorstep. We aim to dominate this segment and cater to all types of gifting needs.

• Events:
Includes venue, entertainment, decor, entertainers, catering or any event-related services. We currently cater to customized party planning requirements using our various vendors. We plan to also become the ideal marketplace for events with a streamlined approach. We empower users to take control of their themed event, and we bring the party to their doorstep.

The Competitive Landscape:
We may not have any competition as a complete celebrations marketplace. However, we face competition from the following companies on segments of the industry (note: there is no large global player in the market):
A. GiftsHabibi - Local Gift Delivery Website
B. JoiGifts - Local Gift Delivery Website
C. Giftbag.ae - Local Gift Delivery Website
D. Floward - Local Flowers Delivery Website
E. Ferns N Petals - International Flowers & Gift Delivery Website
F. Flowers.ae - Local Flowers Delivery Website
G. Party Centre - Local Party Store

Any marketplace should be judged by who has the highest delivery convenience and product variety, and here at Shugah, we cater to both. It's also important to note that no large global player dominates the market share in the celebrations industry.

Our competitive advantage includes but is not limited to:
Our Branding, Technology, Occasion specialization, Product focused, Personalization & Convenience

Our Vendors:
We at Shugah have selectively handpicked and signed on the top bakeries, florists and party stores in the country to ensure that customers receive the benefit of both choice & quality. We currently have the largest combined collection of cakes and desserts in the UAE & Middle East. We are still growing from several vendors, including indirect competitors. They find value in being listed on our platform.

We address key requirements for our vendors which were not being catered to through other market-places such as:
• Listing products that cannot appear on food delivery apps due to preparation time or customizable features
• Providing access to an audience for gifting and parties
• Delivering their products which are usually too sensitive to be transported on Bikes.

The investment acquired in 2021 will be primarily used to fund marketing campaigns, while the remainder will be used towards the development and operations to cope up with the subsequent influx of downloads and orders.

55% - of the funds will be allocated towards marketing to increase downloads, subscriptions & direct sales!

45% - of the funds along with subsequent revenue from sales on
- The increased dedicated delivery drivers to manage the influx of orders
- Towards increasing our on-site as well as off-site support team
- Enhancing our existing features and introducing new features to increase customer retention and frequency of use
- Expansion to other Middle Eastern territories and relevant office and admin expenditures

The funds that we had allocated towards our various marketing campaigns have achieved tremendous success, hence we now look to utilise the expected additional funds mainly towards our marketing budget to multiply this result to achieve a further spike in customer acquisitions via downloads along with an increase in repeat orders from our already expanding customer base via innovative and effective marketing and remarketing campaigns.

We look to use marketing effectively as a tool to increase brand awareness and reel in consumers along with vendors from the large customer base in the UAE and subsequently other Middle Eastern Territories

The Shugah platform will be marketed through several channels ranging from interaction on social media to display advertisements via Google, with most of the budget being utilized for online marketing methods. Simultaneously we will also continue enhancing our position via SEO and attempting Growth Hacks which are in the pipeline.

We also look to further expand our features from providing more party-planning tools, data-driven analytics to better guide vendors, entry into the b2b gifting segment and deepening our selection of services in events that are a big part of celebrations.

The brand then subsequently expects to expand into other countries in the Middle East or Asian countries and replicate our success, as we have already opened our delivery solution to the entire UAE much earlier than our expected date.

The profit projections we're looking at is the Break-even point By 2023 and net profit of 6-8% by 2025.
While this forecast is based on just the USD 250K cash injection, the company would look to raise further investment to expand growth and capture the market.

Now that the gift and events market is growing rapidly, our objective is to become market leaders through our curated marketplace approach.

We expect an exit plan between 2025 - 2027. We believe that a larger e-commerce or delivery player would want to absorb the market we have captured in the celebrations industry, which we anticipate to be 10x to 20x our current valuation. The sale is expected to be via a strategic buy-out by an international player who looks to acquire us due to our substantial competitive advantage and database in a specialised market in this region.