Al Ahram Co. actions to help customers and employees affected by COVID-19

A roundup of actions Al Ahram has taken to reduce the spread of the coronavirus while supporting those directly and indirectly impacted by COVID-19.

As a global company, we’re closely monitoring the impact of COVID-19. In addition to those who are affected by the illness, many more are indirectly dealing with changes in their work, school, and community environments. Here are some of the ways Al Ahram , are supporting customers, communities, and employees during this difficult time.

Serving our customers
We believe our role serving customers and the community during this time is a critical one, and we want to make sure people can get the items they need, when they need them. As COVID-19 has spread, we’ve recently seen an increase in people shopping online. In the short term, this is having an impact on how we serve our customers. In particular, you will notice that we are currently out of stock on some popular brands and items, especially in household staples categories. You will also notice that some of our delivery promises are longer than usual. We are working around the clock with our selling partners to ensure availability on all of our products, and bring on additional capacity to deliver all of your orders.

We’re also working to ensure that no one artificially raises prices on basic need products during this pandemic and have blocked or removed tens of thousands of items, in line with our long-standing policy. We actively monitor our store and remove offers that violate our policy.

Caring for our employees
We continue to work closely with authorities in Egypt and worldwide to ensure that we are taking the right precautions and have implemented a series of preventative health measures for employees.

In light of ongoing international COVID-19 developments, global employees who work in a role that can be done from home, are welcome to do so until at least October 2nd. Every team is different and not all jobs are conducive to working from home. Employees and partners whose work requires their physical presence in their workplace, have access to all of their usual paid and unpaid time-off benefits.

We cancelled large events, and changed the majority of our job interviews to virtual interviews rather than in-person interviews, which often require travel. At the same time, we increased our cleaning of all facilities globally, including regular sanitization of all door handles, stairway handrails, elevator buttons, lockers, and touch screens.

Safeguarding our Fulfilment Network & Delivery teams

As a response to the increase in people shopping online, our operations team has increased its capacity to ensure we fulfil customer orders as quickly as possible. We do this while ensuring the highest safety and hygiene standards for our associates and partners.

  • We are continuing to raise awareness and educate our associates to adhere to preventive hygiene practices outlined by the World Health Organization (WHO) and Egypt’s Ministry of Health and Population.
  • In line with the company’s guidelines, all our associates are required to stay home and seek medical attention if they are feeling unwell.
  • We have increased the frequency and intensity of cleaning at all operations sites across the Egypt.
  • Our vehicles and warehouse also following very rigorous hygienic standards.
  • Before reaching customers, employees sanitize their hands to protect themselves and also assure customers that shipments are safe and clean.
  • Pay online for contactless deliveries.
  • We also continue to work with delivery service partners to ensure they are supporting their employees during this time.

Empowering our customers
In addition to serving our retail customers, we’re making sure Al Ahram Co. customers have the tools and support they need to keep their businesses and organizations moving forward safely and efficiently.

AWS is collaborating with public health organizations, government agencies, and businesses around the globe to support their efforts resulting from the ripple effect of COVID-19. This includes providing customers in the most affected regions with technical support and AWS credits that help cover costs, while enabling organizations to quickly stand up and scale their tools and infrastructure to keep businesses running, and speed COVID-19 research projects. More details to be shared in coming days.

We are supporting our customers and others who are working from home with AWS services, including virtual desktops in the cloud, frustration-free online meetings with video, and secure content storage and collaboration. AWS also provides services for many healthcare and life sciences companies that are working on research, diagnosis, treatment, and vaccine study to accelerate our collective understanding of COVID-19.

Al Ahram Co. Reaction to COVID-19

We care for our customers and are keen to provide them with an easy solution to help them stay home safe while having their shopping requirements delivered to their door steps. Accordingly, we are continuously working with our selling partners to ensure availability on all of our products while monitoring the prices on our site to ensure no artificial rise in prices occur.  Additional capacity to deliver all of your orders has also been executed.

To ensure safety of our associates, we have taken extreme measures related to: Deep cleaning for the full fulfilment center(s), daily disinfecting routine for our vehicles, applying social distancing in fulfilment centers, hourly reminders on washing hands on the app used by associates or through the safety ambassador on site, conducting daily standup awareness on site sessions in all shifts and adjusting sick leave policy in case any symptoms show at any point in the future with any of our employees.

Empowering our customers
In addition to serving our retail customers, we’re making sure customers have the tools and support they need to keep their businesses and organizations moving forward safely and efficiently.

AWS is collaborating with public health organizations, government agencies, and businesses around the globe to support their efforts resulting from the ripple effect of COVID-19. This includes providing customers in the most affected regions with technical support and AWS credits that help cover costs, while enabling organizations to quickly stand up and scale their tools and infrastructure to keep businesses running, and speed COVID-19 research projects. More details to be shared in coming days.

We are supporting our customers and others who are working from home with AWS services, including virtual desktops in the cloud, frustration-free online meetings with video, and secure content storage and collaboration. AWS also provides services for many healthcare and life sciences companies that are working on research, diagnosis, treatment, and vaccine study to accelerate our collective understanding of COVID-19.