Dubai: This year's edition of the Dubai Shopping Festival has once again helped boost sales of electronics. Sales figures have risen 30 per cent during the festival.
Retailers hope the trend of increasing consumer confidence will be maintained, even as they note significant changes in customer preferences.
"[The] revival of consumer confidence appears to have set in. It shows in the sales performance of our business in the ongoing DSF," said Dr Ram Buxani, president of ITL-Cosmos Group, one of the oldest business houses and electronics distributors in the UAE and in the region, in a phone interview with Gulf News.
"For the first 15 days of the DSF, it has shown improvement of as much as 30 per cent over last year's figures," said Buxani, who added that the increase had been in value and sales terms.
He noted, however, that luxury and high-priced items, like the LED tele-vision segment and large-sized white goods such as air conditioners, fridges and washing machines — have not yet shown signs of growth.
"Compared to 2008 when people bought big-sized televisions, this year most people just opt to buy the smaller sizes in order to suit their budget," Buxani said.
One DSF shopper shared the same sentiments.
"My husband and I are just window shopping and we've seen that the price of the television [set] with [a] home theatre was really cheap and of good quality that we were convinced [and decided] to buy one and will have it packaged to the Philippines," Geny Cuizon, a nurse in Dubai, told Gulf News.
The first few days of the DSF have also been positive for Jacky's Electronics, whose sales rose 18 per cent over last year, particularly in the fast-moving product categories such as smart phones, cameras, laptops and LCD television sets.
"Yes, definitely we've seen an increase in terms of value for the first two weeks of the DSF compared to last year and the 2008 DSF," Ashish Panjabi, chief operations officer of Jacky's Group of Companies, told Gulf News in a phone interview
"We've seen growth of up to 18 per cent and a decrease of 25 to 30 per cent in [the] average selling price."
The ITL-Cosmos Group reported that the items with huge demand during the DSF were home appliances like refrigerators, vacuum cleaners, microwave ovens, rice cookers and air purifiers.
Necessities
"People see these electronic products as necessities and not as luxury items," said Buxani.
However, Jacky's electronic items with the highest demand during this DSF include LED and LCD television sets.
"We've seen an exceptional increase in those categories," Panjabi said, adding that they had cut the prices of the LCD television sets by up to 26 per cent.
The middle income group, which had previously been holding on to their hard-earned cash, were now loosening their wallets and buying electronic necessities, Buxani said.
He explained why growth had been concentrated in low-priced to middle-priced items.
"More people from the middle-income and lower-income groups are spending during [the] DSF, and not much from the higher-income group," he said, emphasising that people were after value for money.
Jacky's Electronics has also seen a high footfall across its outlets in Dubai, with a good mix of local residents and tourists.
The company attributed the increase in sales to its unique partnership with Samsung Gulf Electronics in giving away the latest LED television sets to DSF shoppers.
