Dubai: Tyres are moving faster than fashion for the Easa Saleh Al Gurg Group. According to Muna Al Gurg, head of retail, Dunlop Tyres are among the group's fastest growing retail products.
"Sales and growth of tyres are brilliant and we are in the top three. I think it's mainly because when you have a brand like Dunlop which is globally in the top five, people know the brand and are more likely to choose it," she said.
Dunlop's affiliation with Dubai Taxi and Land Cruiser has been a considerable boost in promoting awareness and sales.
"Every Land Cruiser comes fitted with Dunlop tyres, which means when it comes to replacing the tyres, consumers are most likely to stick to the same brand," said Al Gurg.
The other fast moving products are cigarettes. According to Euromonitor, the Mena region is one of the only two regions in the world where cigarette volumes are growing, and accounts for around 7 per cent of sales per capita consumption of which the highest volumes are in Tunisia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
The group is the sole distributor of British American Tobacco products. According to Al Gurg, Dunhill has the biggest market share in the premium category thanks to its recent product development and launches.
In the mid to low-end category, John Player Gold Leaf is their number one brand and is particularly favoured by labourers who are the biggest consumers. "We've got a very good network of distributors and a very strong team who know the market inside out," said Al Gurg.
Appliances and office furniture through brands such as IDdesign, Mariner, Giorgia Collection and Aico are also enjoying good sales. "A lot of international offices are coming in and, because we have established brands, people know of them," she said.
Stationery
One area the group has been concentrating on to boost brand awareness and sales is social media. So far it has focused on developing Al Gurg Stationery and Benetton's online presence.
"It's something I really advocate; we introduced it this year, so I'd like the see the results by the end of the year," she said. "I see it as a major brand builder and as a below-the-line marketing tool."
With United Colours of Benetton, Al Gurg has worked with local fashion bloggers to start a ‘Bloggers United' forum.
"I approached the fashion bloggers in the UAE," said Al Gurg. "We invite them into our stores, I talk to them, we give them exposure within our windows and they blog about us.
For one week one of them will design a window and so within that window we put in their name, blog and we give them that exposure. A lot of the young people relate to this."
In the near future, the group is looking at dev-eloping ID Design and Smeg's social network platform.
"The UAE retail market offers a fertile environment for many brands from America," said Al Gurg. "The reason being US retailers find it difficult to translate their brands to Europe because European brands tend to monopolise a lot of the market in Europe. A meeting point is usually established in the UAE as a stepping stone to Europe."
Potential
However, while the market offers potential, Al Gurg says the influx of foreign brands may lead to saturation of the market. "This could lead to a restraint of local smaller and medium enterprises," she said. "How do they penetrate the market when they have all these major competitors in front of them. That could be a challenge for retailers."
The group has also developed a number of its own retail concepts such as their online portal for stationery.
"Multinationals don't have time to pick up the phone and call several places. We developed algurgstationery.com as a transaction, payment and delivery website."
