1. President of Soft–Lynix Mazen Kattan, 30, and Siddiqui collect information door–to–door for their shopping portal.

2. He also noted that Soft–Lynix has signed a contract with Google to have Jeddah eShop as a sponsored link on the search web page soon.

3. Soft–Lynix derived the idea of creating Jeddah eShop from Microsoft’s www.eshop.com that serves as «a mall without walls» where everything is put in one place to compare products and prices.

4. Some businessmen and shop owners are still hesitant about sharing their business information with Soft–Lynix, a Jeddah–based IT company specialized in e–marketing, which is currently compiling information for the first online shops directory that is still under development: www.jeddaheshop.com. «After studying the growth of e–commerce in comparison to the local cyber culture and conducting market research and analysis, we realized that customers here are not ready yet to purchase their local products online,» said Shakeel Siddiqui, general manager of Soft–Lynix. «Therefore, we developed Jeddah eShop as an online city outlet information resource for consumers, mainly expatriates either residing or visiting Jeddah, to find shops in town,» said Siddiqui.