A media buyer for Kuwait.
Seif Gomaa runs the ads and fixes the store for brands selling online in Kuwait. The first problem I found on a Kuwait store was not the ads: the store could not ship to Kuwait at all. Break-even on that account, with courier and waste counted, was a 2.23 ROAS.
Usually answered the same day, Cairo time.
What is different about selling online in Kuwait?
Three things break Kuwait stores, and a template built for another market never checks them: delivery is priced by area, KNET is how most shoppers expect to pay, and the dinar has three decimals.
Couriers in Kuwait price delivery by area, while Shopify only knows the six governorates. On one store the courier's list ran from the standard rate to more than six times it for the far areas, and two governorates held several price tiers each. The setup that works is one shipping zone per governorate, offering only the tiers that exist inside it, with the area names written in each rate title so the shopper picks their own.
KNET is the default way to pay in Kuwait. On the same store the payment step showed Visa and Mastercard logos and a single redirect option; KNET only appeared after the redirect, on the gateway's own page. A shopper who does not see KNET on the first screen assumes it is not there.
KWD prices carry three decimals: 1.500, not 1.50. Shopify keeps three decimals in the admin, but the storefront counts KWD in hundredths and fakes the third decimal through the money format. Any theme code that does price maths has to be written for that, or the cart shows 10.0000 KD.
How much do courier and waste cost a Kuwait store?
More than most owners think. On a food brand in Kuwait, courier cost was 16.9% of revenue and waste another 8%: 24.9% together, more than the product itself at 24%.
The store charged a flat delivery fee, but the blended courier cost per order was higher, so the brand paid about 5.5% of revenue on every order out of its own margin. That gap never shows in Ads Manager, and it moves break-even.
With courier and waste counted, break-even was a 2.23 ROAS. The two soft inputs, the courier blend and the waste rate, move it between 1.98 and 2.55, so I check both against courier invoices and stock records before planning spend on it.
Where do Kuwait shoppers actually see the ads?
On a phone, inside Instagram or Facebook. On that store 99.9% of ad traffic opened in the in-app browser on mobile. So every check on the product page, the cart and the checkout is done at phone width inside an in-app browser, not on a desktop. The two bugs that cost the most sales only showed up there.
What happened on a real Kuwait store?
Shopify · Kuwait
A food brand in Kuwait: the store that could not ship to Kuwait
The situation. The brand had just moved its store to Shopify, and the next step was to start the ads.
What we found. Before any ad ran, a test order with a Kuwaiti address returned "We don't ship to this destination". The store had been set up from a template for another market: its only market was the UAE, its shipping zones covered the UAE and a list of Western countries, and the rates were still demo values in dirhams. Kuwait was in none of them.
What we changed. The market moved to Kuwait and shipping was rebuilt as governorate zones carrying the courier's area prices, with every area named in the rate titles and the full area table on its own page. Each zone was read back after saving, because Shopify accepts a zone with the wrong province codes without an error and then quotes no shipping at all.
What happened. Kuwaiti addresses get a delivery price at checkout, and the ads started on a store that could take the order. It is now the first thing I test on any store built from a template for another market.
Shopify · Kuwait
Same brand: 81% of carts never reached checkout
The situation. The ads were running, and the owner believed the loss sat between checkout and purchase.
What we found. The funnel said otherwise. Only 19% of add-to-carts reached checkout, while 57% of checkouts became purchases. Tracking was healthy: the store's orders and Meta's purchases matched at 85%. Three things sat at that one step. A minimum-order rule disabled the checkout button for shoppers buying single items, and those baskets were 29% of orders. On a phone the cart drawer could not scroll down to its own checkout button. And KNET stayed hidden until after the redirect.
What we changed. The minimum stayed, because the economics need it, but the locked button became a one-tap control that adds what is missing and lets the shopper carry on. The cart drawer was fixed at phone width, and the product page now starts at the quantity the minimum asks for.
What happened. Against break-even, the ads were already at a 3.78 ROAS in the store's own data, 69% above the 2.23 line, so the advice was to spend more, not cut. The cart-to-checkout rate is being re-measured after the fix, and the new figure goes here once it is measured.
Clients are not named unless the owner agreed. Figures are ratios only, with no sales, spend or order counts.
What should you read next?
Questions about selling in Kuwait.
Who runs ads for online stores in Kuwait?
Does a hidden KNET option cost sales?
Why is my Kuwait store not taking orders from Kuwait?
How do I price delivery by area in Kuwait on Shopify?
What break-even ROAS should a Kuwait store expect?
Snapchat or Meta for a Kuwait store?
Tell me about the store.
WhatsApp is fastest. If you would rather not start a chat yet, leave a number and a link and I will message you within 24 hours.
Usually answered the same day, Cairo time.