Dubai: Key retailers are offering attractive deals during the month-long Dubai Shopping Festival (DSF), which kicks off on January 2, in bid to make consumers open up their wallets.
Tablets, smartphones, DSLR cameras and LED TVs are likely to dominate sales.
“We are bullish about this DSF and the sentiment is strong. So far, the year-end sales have been very good and the sentiment is expected to continue in DSF plus a lot of tourists from Russia and China are in town. Many Indians will also come during DSF,” Nadeem Khanzadah, head of retail at Jumbo Electronics, told Gulf News.
DSF this year should result in positive growth as more tourists arrive from the Gulf, Russia and China. For the GCC, Dubai is a weekend trip, for the Russians, they celebrate Christmas in January so many of them would be on holiday and the Chinese have Chinese New Year coming up this month as well.
He said premium smartphones are already doing brisk sales and are expected to continue while TV has not done very well in December and the feedback from the residents is that they are waiting for the DSF offers.
Deepak Babani, CEO of Eros, said that demand will be driven by tablets and smartphones. This year our focus is on 4K TVs. Consumers can see huge price difference during the event. The 55-inch 4K TVs will almost be close to 55-inch LED TVs.
“We have some very exciting offers on TVs and mobile phones. We will be dropping the prices plus there will be bundled offers and gift vouchers. We are spending 70 per cent of our marketing budget only for this DSF and the rest 30 per cent for the entire year,” Babani said.
Jumbo is expecting between 10-20 per cent rise in sales compared to last year and has earmarked $2 million for promotions and marketing campaign, excluding the participation fee.
“We expect a huge increase in TV sales, same for cameras. TVs and cameras are largely DSF dominated category. We have selected few models in every category in which we will have really exclusive good offers,” Khanzadah said.
Many UAE residents have been waiting for big purchases like TVs and cameras. All in all, everything points to a very good DSF.
In TVs and cameras, he said there will be a heavy price drop or more than equivalent bundled offers. In laptops, smartphones and tablets, we will have umbrella offers.
Neelesh Bhatnagar, CEO of Emax, said this DSF is going to be great in line with the optimistic and upbeat mood of the nation. “We expect around 40 per cent growth this year.”
Bhatnagar said there will be great bundled offers from brands themselves as well as from us. We will not reduce the price but bundled offers will be much better than last year.
Emax has earmarked Dh20 million for marketing and promotions.
