Credit cards at the ready, people…

Noon.com, the $1bn e-commerce website founded by Dubai billionaire Mohamed Alabbar is finally open for business.

Having missed its initial launch date back in January of this year, the Saudi Public Investment Fund-backed site had been mired in controversy in recent month with the original CEO, Fodhil Benturquia, and other key members of staff having left the venture.

Online fashion retail site Namshi.com co-founder, Faraz Khalid, was then appointed as the company’s new CEO in July, and it looks like things have got back on track since, with the site quietly going online last night to very little fanfare.

“Today, we are excited to deliver orders to our first customers. We are proud to take this important first step in our journey, and we are committed to making Noon the region’s Arabic-first e-commerce platform,” said Alabbar in a statement.

Noon.com is poised to go up against US e-commerce giant Amazon, who earlier this year successfully bought out UAE online retailer Souq.com (who can be considered Noon’s biggest rival) for an estimated sum of $650 million.

Currently the site has products listed across several categories including, electronics, fashion, beauty, homeware and, interestingly enough, groceries.  Although, it is far less than the purported 20 million items that were promised last year.

Either way, competition is always healthy and it certainly looks like the battle for your online shopping money is heating up.

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