With the increase in popularity of online shopping and retail, e-commerce and general or wholesale trading licences have shot up in popularity. It has become ever-so-easy to find a supplier that produces good quality products and have them shipped to your customer without ever having to come in contact with the products yourself. However, this scenario mostly refers to dropshipping businesses whereby the seller is selling products belonging to other brands which may or may not require them to be an authorised distributor.

If a business wishes to import into the UAE  or manufacture and sell products that carry its own branding and custom labelling and packaging, the business would need to get its products registered by the Dubai Municipality. Product registration requirements and regulations vary depending on the type of product being sold (food grade; non-food grade; cosmetics etc.) as well as the variant such as quantity (500ml; 1l; 2l; 5l etc.). These variants are often differentiated using barcodes with each variant having a separate barcode. If a business wishes to introduce 2 types of products with 2 different variants each, they would need a total of 4 product registrations in order to legally sell the product in the UAE.