It may sound ironic that I am ranting about a platform that I actually like—Noon.

First, the things I like. Noon Minutes is crazy fast: seven-minute delivery where I live, fair prices, and a good product selection. I also like that Noon is a homegrown UAE brand competing—and, in certain areas, doing better—against global giants like Amazon.

But there is one part of Noon that frustrates me: Noon Now.

Problem #1: Inaccurate Inventory and Listings

The first problem is inventory.

You select a supermarket or store on Noon Now, spend time browsing, fill your basket, and place the order. Then you receive a message saying that the store has finished picking your order and that some products—or, with some stores, most of the products—you ordered are not available.

Occasional stock discrepancies are completely understandable. These are physical stores with customers simultaneously buying products off the shelves. You can never expect 100% accuracy.

But when this happens regularly, and happens with products that you are reasonably sure could not have gone from plenty of stock to zero in the ten minutes since you ordered, it is a real problem.

This happens because the store’s inventory isn’t synchronised with the platform. It is surprising that stores invest so much money in developing their own e-commerce and loyalty apps, but when they get a shot at serving Noon’s customers, they can’t even keep their listings and inventory reasonably accurate.

They have the software and inventory with barcodes. All they need are two relevant figures: the actual moving inventory, which changes with purchases, receipts, and returns; and a rolling average of the daily quantity sold through the physical store.

With these two figures, a store could maintain its safety stock for in-store customers and expose only the remaining quantity to Noon. It wouldn’t be perfect, but it would be reasonably accurate.

Keeping listings accurate—removing obsolete items and making sure descriptions, weights, and package measurements are correct—is even easier.

Currently, it doesn’t feel like shopping. It feels more like I am submitting a request to purchase, and the store is responding with what is available.

Problem #2: The Physical Receipt Retention Problem

There is another strange problem when something actually goes wrong with an order.

If the store sends you the wrong item or quantity and you contact Noon Now customer service, they will ask you for a photo of the store receipt that came with the order.

There are two problems with this.

First, the customer isn’t told that this receipt needs to be retained. Many customers will just throw it away, assuming that the Noon Now billing record itself is enough. Why would anyone save a supermarket receipt?

Second, what happens if the store forgets to send the receipt with the order? The customer would have to go back to the store and follow up for a receipt so that they could lodge a complaint.

There should be no role for a physical receipt in a digital platform. Why doesn’t Noon make it mandatory for every participating store to upload the final receipt digitally against the order, making it part of the customer’s Noon order history?

Problem #3: The AED 7 Handling Fee Is a Black Box

First, to be clear: fees themselves aren’t a problem. Fees are fine as long as they are transparent and the customer understands the rules and consequences.

If your basket is below AED X, you pay a small-order fee. Increase the basket beyond AED X and the fee disappears. If your order is below AED X, you have a delivery fee, and the app clearly shows how much more you need to order to get free delivery.

All that is great. There is a rule. I understand the rule. I can make an informed decision.

The handling fee, though, is different. This fee of AED 7 can appear when an order is considered large or complex and may require additional handling or multiple riders.

My problem is not the AED 7. My problem is that I cannot work out the rule that triggers the AED 7.

There appears to be no clear weight or volume attached to products that allows the customer to understand when an order crosses the threshold.

Imagine if Noon said:

Orders exceeding 20 kg or 60 litres of calculated volume may require an additional rider and incur an AED 7 handling fee. Fragile products such as eggs may require separate handling. Frozen products such as ice cream may require insulated packaging and may contribute towards an additional handling charge.

That would be perfect.

Each item could have a calculated weight or volume, and I would understand the rule.

I could remove a bottle of water. I could split my shopping. Or I could simply accept the AED 7 and continue.

The important thing is that I could make an informed choice.

Instead, I am left experimenting to figure out what triggers the fee.

And trust me, I actually spent a whole day exchanging emails with customer service and experimenting with different carts, trying to understand how this fee is calculated.

What I Found

1. Similar baskets don’t necessarily get similar fees.

A basket from one store may not attract the handling fee, while a very similar basket—similar products, similar volume, and the same delivery distance—from another store may attract it.

2. The basket value doesn’t seem to explain it either.

I was told that above AED 200 the fee would be waived.

But during my testing, I saw it disappear at around AED 150 as well. A basket at AED 90 showed the handling fee; I increased the basket to around AED 150, and the fee disappeared.

So what exactly determines the charge remains a mystery to me.

Weight? Volume? Number of bags? Number of individual items? Order value? Store-specific rules? Rider availability? Some combination of all of these?

I don’t know.

And, interestingly, customer service doesn’t seem able to explain the calculation either, because the answer I keep getting is essentially:

“It is a complex order and may require multiple riders.”

But that explains what the fee is for.

It doesn’t explain why my particular order triggered it.

Just Tell Me Why

Noon doesn’t have to remove the fee.

They just need to make it predictable and transparent.

Show the customer what is causing it.

For example:

Handling fee: AED 7

Your basket has a calculated volume of 60 litres. Standard delivery capacity is 45 litres. Your order exceeds standard capacity by 15 litres and requires additional handling.

Done.

Now I know.

I may not like paying the AED 7, but I understand exactly why I am paying it.

And presumably the platform already knows why it is applying the fee. Some rule, calculation, or algorithm has decided that this particular basket requires additional handling.

Just disclose that reason to the customer.

The same principle applies to inventory.

If the stock information is live, keep it reasonably synchronised. I don’t expect 100% accuracy—that would be unrealistic for a physical supermarket.

But make it reasonably accurate.

I know this wouldn’t necessarily be easy. Every supermarket may have a different POS and inventory system, different stock-management practices, and different technical capabilities.

But then again, what Noon has already achieved wasn’t easy either.

Seven-minute deliveries weren’t easy.

Building a logistics network across the UAE wasn’t easy.

Competing successfully against some of the world’s largest e-commerce companies wasn’t easy.

Compared with all of that, these seem like solvable problems.

Both issues could be dramatically improved by doing one simple thing:

Give the customer more information before they press Place Order.

I genuinely like Noon, and I sincerely hope someone from Noon reads this.

And, even better, I hope it changes something.