Dubai It’s about half past 10 Monday evening, the third night of Gitex Shopper 2014. The glossy open-air trade centre plaza between Shaikh Saeed Hall 3 and the Dubai Trade Centre Hotel Apartments is teeming with tired-looking shoppers taking a hard-earned break – some off to a quick drag on a cigarette while desperately holding on to the bulk of their electronic conquests, some racing against time to finish the burger, gruffly resting on a 50” LED TV box.
Looking at the way food stalls rustle up the spiral potatoes and flavoured shaved ice, you could be spared for thinking it perhaps is dinnertime already and you may have arrived a tad early for Day 4 of this manic eight-day electronics shop fest. The silence of the lamps on streets you see from a distance too begin to give you a sense that Dubai’s probably, finally ready to call it a day, till of course, you make your way into the main arena where Gitex Shopper is, much to your relief, a world far removed and still in full swing despite the clock almost ticking 11, the closing time.
Loudspeakers blurting out last minute offers and raffle draw results at fever pitch, promoters in fancy corporate vests, down to the point of barely avoiding jostling, if not heckling you for a last minute buy, and giant curved 4K LEDs, amongst other marvels, stare you in the eye.
Surely there’s a gadget everywhere but not a one to wink at. If ‘Water, water everywhere, not a drop to drink’ was the ancient mariner’s rime then this could well be the modern day chime of technophile lost in an ocean of gizmos and electronics. So if you have been wondering what the big deal is about Gitex, it is being there and coming out – unscathed, unspent.
Irresistible
Oil company executive Humaid Rashid Al Tenajji, 24, and his younger brother, Mohammad Jassem Al Tenajji, 21, a university student, went to Gitex with a wallet loaded with cards but few plans to buy anything. They came out with a Samsung 65-inch curved smart UHD TV for Dh16,999 that also gave them a Dh1,000 gift voucher and a Samsung Air Track sound-bar among other offers. “It was too hard to resist. We didn’t need a TV particularly but it just looked so good,” says Humaid.
Sri Lankan Afzal Deen, 35, vowed to come out of Gitex without spending a dirham. He ended up spending Dh250 on home appliances. “I still managed to resist looking at the laptops, tablets, TVs and smart phones. Even though you have all of them, you still want to get your hands on them. I think I still managed to keep myself in check,” smirks the senior analyst at a Dubai-based cola company.
With easy payment options and zero per cent EMI schemes by most banks, it’s easy to understand why Gitex offers sell like hotcakes. “You don’t even have to pay anything. Just sign up and we process the EMIs instantly,” says Nasir K, 19, a BBA student at a Dubai college who’s taken time off from classes to promote a new six-inch LED smartphone for a Dh500 per 12-hour shift over eight days. “This phone was Dh1,099 at 9.59pm. It’s now slashed by Dh400, only for this last hour, don’t miss it,” says the teenager from Kerala.
In all likelihood, you not only walk away with the phone but also a bundle of offers including a 32 GB flash card and other vouchers. For your spur of the moment decision, Nasir, a veteran promoter, gets a small cut too – that all adds up to almost Dh5,000 for an extended week.
“Sometimes the way we look generates a lot of interest that leads people to find out how good our products are,” explains Moldovan Olesea Gaganova, 31, promoting a chic HP Envy dv6-7357 laptop, dressed as a 16-year-old schoolgirl in pristine white sports shoes and blue tennis skirt.
At other times offers like a ‘fly home for free’ jumps out of nowhere. You probably aren’t a techie nor a stickler for having a good television at home, but if there is a bait called ‘free return tickets for two’ you will do whatever it takes – even it means buying a 50-inch television.
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