OLAH Haircare was born out of Alia Almarzooqi's desire to transform her grandmother's passion for natural hair care into a modern beauty brand. Using her family’s tried-and-true recipe, Alia shared the amazing results on social media, quickly gaining a following. Encouraged by the growing interest, at the age of 21, Alia launched OLAH Haircare in July 2023, offering high-quality, chemical-free products to her followers.

Alia’s commitment to authenticity and customer satisfaction quickly earned her a loyal customer base. As the business gained traction and orders increased, in February 2024, Alia launched her DTC website to capture the growth. However, as demand grew, their payment methods created a bottleneck at check-out.

In the beginning, Alia and her mother handled payments by responding to Instagram and WhatsApp inquiries, sharing bank details, and then waiting for payment screenshots. With customers spanning multiple countries across the GCC—each with different banks and currencies—this system soon became unsustainable. Slow payments meant delayed shipments, and tracking multiple transfers manually was clunky and time-consuming.

OLAH’s biggest hurdle was cart abandonment. When faced with the complexity of bank transfers and screenshots, many customers simply gave up, resulting in failed transactions and lost sales. OLAH needed a solution to scale faster.

To address these growing pains, Alia needed a more centralized way to process payments efficiently. A friend recommended Ziina as a seamless solution, and in February 2024, she integrated Ziina’s payment gateway into her Shopify website. Now, customers could pay instantly using credit cards, vastly reducing the time spent manually capturing each transaction.

Since integrating Ziina, OLAH Haircare’s payment process has transformed, resulting in higher revenue and increased customer satisfaction. The streamlined payment experience resulted in a 35% decrease in abandoned carts and higher order volumes. Fueled by faster payments and smoother international transactions, the Ziina payment gateway ensures that OLAH can experience 30% month-on-month revenue growth.

“Ziina has eliminated the hassle of slow transactions and reduced cart abandonment. Instant payments through credit cards and Apple Pay are incredibly convenient for us and our customers,” Alia shared.

Ziina was pivotal in saving the time spent on manual payment reconciliations, allowing Alia to shift her focus to growing her brand, expanding her product line, and enhancing the customer experience. With Ziina as a trusted partner, OLAH Haircare is now positioned to aggressively scale even further within the GCC and beyond.