Dedicated halal cosmetic online stores are continuing to grow as companies take notice of the increasing amount of Muslim consumers spending their growing incomes on online shopping.
Indeed, as the amount of middle class Muslim’s grow, so do the amount of dedicated Halal sites, from cosmetics to fashion. And while some online stores are unaware of what ‘halal’ includes, many of the dedicated sites understand that even some cosmetics and vitamin supplements contain both animal gelatin and alcohol, making them banned.
Companies are now creating dedicated sites to cater for the growing number of well paid Muslims looking to purchase halal or religiously permissible products, such as Malaysia-based Zilzar. The company suggests that other large online sites don’t cater to the halal market as much as demand requires, and as such only has halal-certified products in its store.
Speaking to WSJ, Rushdi Siddiqui, Zilzar’s Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer said, “It is our hope and belief that Zilzar and our colleagues will do for the halal industry market what Alibaba did for China.”
However, despite these ‘e-halal’ sites clearly set for success, capitalizing on the large market set to reach $252 million by 2020, there are challenges to be faced. These include getting halal certification universally recognized and unifying standards across the 114 different certification bodies, all of which have slightly different ways of certifying halal.