Dubai: Holding high levels of inventory needn’t be such a heavy burden for an e-tailing site – in fact, the promoter of a new high-end apparel and accessories portal in Dubai believes it can even be turned into an advantage.
BrandsBay.com went live on Monday after being put through a series of beta tests in recent weeks. And rather than sell current season clothing lines, its selling point will be to offer a season- or two-season old merchandising sold at 40 per cent and more lower than official listed prices. And, according to the promoter, there is a sizable audience for just that sort of thing.
“The launch of BrandsBay.com is an upstream move on our part – the company has hosted the ‘Big Brands Carnival’ series in for Dubai 10 years now, where we offer off-season or slightly older couture and accessories,” said Vijay Samyani, Managing Director of Concept Brands Group. “For each event, our sourcing is actually two to three times of what we sell.
“We felt the same inventory – which we hold in a state-of-the-art logistics facility - could be sold through an online channel as well, which is how BrandsBay.com came into being.
“Our research found that almost all e-tailers in the region carry limited stocks because they do not want to left with the cost burden if they don’t sell. But, with us, we hold the inventory and it’s sizable, and we know just where to look to find buyers.”
Through the multi-year events, held at the Dubai International Exhibition Centre and in some of the other Gulf markets, CBG has built a database of 600,000 customers. Around 80 per cent of these are based in the UAE. A four-day Big Brands Carnival in Dubai records visitor traffic of 20,000-22,000. The average transaction value comes to around Dh350-Dh500 per buyer. The costliest purchase is Dh26,000.
Transferring some of these numbers onto the BrandsBay.com is what Samyani is aiming for. The portal’s name was, in fact, acquired from a US-based entity which held the rights. Samyani felt both ‘brand’ and ‘bay’ holds a special sort of resonance with shoppers in both the physical and virtual spaces.
By acquiring the merchandise in bulk from apparel distributors, the operator is able to realize significant cost benefits. A sizable 80 per cent of the stocks are from local suppliers.
“We already have established sourcing processes for the Carnival events… it will be easy to duplicate the process for the online side of things,” said Samyani. “If you look at it, our costs for the Carnival events were on inventory, marketing and hosting them, and they are among the biggest privately sponsored annual series on the Dubai World Trade Centre’s calendar.
“Just because we launched the portal will not see a major rise in our operating costs – those were limited to the technology and getting the rights to BrandsBay.com name.
“The cost would have been substantial only if we had decided to get into physical retailing through our own stores … but we are comfortable selling in the virtual world.”
