Meet with E-Commerce Icon – Julia Jackle

Julia Jackle, the CEO of Creative971 is famous for creating successful ecommerce stores. Partner with Shopify and Shopify Plus her award-winning company has worked with more than 200 brands building ecommerce websites and making digital transformation for companies possible so that they could operate impactfully. In 2016 her company won the #CrowdFunDxb 3.0 as the most innovative startup that accelerated the business growth. In 2021, Julia was an Inspiring Business Women Leader 2021 awardee under the patronage of the Private office of His Highness Sheikh Ahmed Bin Faisal Al Qassimi. Here is an insightful interview with the co-founder of Creative971.

Launching Creative 971 & Professional Goals

Julia: Being Germans living in the UAE we noticed that a very well adapted platform for E-commerce named Shopify, wasn’t represented in the UAE back in 2016. So, my brother Nico and I decided to change this. We are the co-founders of Creative971 and always had a technical and business background. We went to actualize on launching Creative971 in August 2016, complementing each other’s areas of expertise. Our passion for quality and great user experience for businesses was our motivation and still is a core mission of our brand. We’ve helped multiple businesses from SME’s up to a larger group of companies we worked predominantly in the GCC and MENA region, with some clients from Germany too. We also cater either theme or bespoke approach, we focus on each brand requirements and realize this on the overall website built in Shopify & Shopify plus.

What has been your greatest contribution in the realm of technology?

Julia: Creative971 is the leading expert partner on Shopify and Shopify plus in the UAE and MENA region. We mainly focus on E-commerce website design and development, and we are able to build custom solutions for our merchants that eventually fuels their business to reach global markets through their e-commerce business.

Who benefits greatly from your work and how?

Julia: We worked with all industries, basically any brand that would like to digitize their business and start their E-commerce store. We are here to support and partner with every brand digitalizing their business and launching their E-commerce stores. Indeed, it is not a journey they should cover alone. Currently, majority of our network are larger group of companies from Retail – Fashion industry. But we have worked in different industries. It will be worth to check our portfolio at Creative971 to review some of the websites designed and developed for our clients.

What is your vision?

Julia: My vision is that the E-commerce market becomes more educated and companies like ours become the missing link to anyone who is willing to thrive their business online. It matters as we get so many clients that tell us that they had wrongly invested in other companies and so on.

What do you say about the future of E-commerce?

Julia: The e-commerce industry is certainly growing. Trends are continually changing in an effort to influence how consumers’ shopping behaviour shapes around the world. This makes E-commerce exciting and interesting. As we all know, post pandemic we see very different approaches in Ecommerce. We see more companies transforming their businesses into Ecommerce businesses. Who would have thought that necessities like grocery would be the first to go completely digital? Clearly, E-commerce is here to stay and will continue to grow over time. Consequently, in an efficient and innovative way, consumer shopping experience will become easier. Users expect a convenient shopping experience, one that is a quick and smooth process from placing the order to the actual delivery at their doorsteps. The future of e-commerce this year will also showcase full automation. As to date, some warehouses are investing in robotics in their operations to become more efficient. Aside from this, we can also consider the changes in payment process – This particularly means implementing smarter payment solutions, such as “Buy Now, Pay Later” models via one of our partners “Tabby” or also Crypto currency payments.

Was there a glass ceiling? How did you manage your way as a woman in technology? Do you believe gender interferes with your presence in tech world in your region? Share your thoughts…

Julia: Yes, at some point you experience challenges – as most of us know, technology world is dominated by masculinity and huge percentage of the industry contributors are mostly Males.  Hence, being a woman in the digital industry can be tough. It forces you to work twice as hard, perhaps jeopardize your work-life balance. However, after you have identified your flow and established a strategy, it is essential to draw a thin line between business and personal life in order for you to have a healthy work-life balance. Having this established, it will give you more freedom and provide you more positive and creative outlook on your work. I believe, that we are lucky now that we are on a different generation. A generation, wherein people are more aware with gender equality and respect you with what you can bring to the table. We have people that see you based on the knowledge and value that you are bringing in and not only focusing on gender difference.

What is your game plan for next 5 years?

Julia: Game plan consists of growth but a healthy growth to continue support our community. I see myself in 5 years as a person continuing to support the industry and specifically women in business.

What should women in the field of technology do to come to the top?

Julia: Women should believe in themselves, be more confident, more authentic and know that they can achieve whatever they set their mind to.

Contact Julia Jackle:

They can visit our website creative971 or follow us on our Instagram account Creative971 or send us an email at info@creative971.com