In Focus | Dubai Shopping Festival 2012
Was it business as usual for retailers at DSF this time?
While it is still too early to assess what the numbers would say, industry experts believe the general retail sector remains upbeat.
- By Nadia Saleem, Staff Reporter
- Published: 23:11 February 9, 2009
- Image Credit: Hadrian Hernandez/Gulf News
- Official sponsors of the Dubai Shopping Festival totalled 40 shopping malls, including the Dubai Mall (above), scattered around the emirate, as well as more than 6,000 retailers.
Dubai: As the 32-day Dubai Shopping Festival (DSF), comes to a close, it is time to add up the savings. Were retailers across the city, decked out in eye-grabbing banners vying for customer attention, successful?
DSF this year saw numerous sponsors, and a government investment of Dh75 million. A large portion of investment is set aside for advertising and promotions, in efforts to boost sales. What the combined spending from individual retailers was is anyone's guess. Official sponsors added up to 40 shopping malls scattered around the emirate, as well as 6,000 plus retailers.
While it is still too early to assess what the numbers would say, industry experts believe that the general trend in the retail sector remained upbeat, due to its somewhat immunity, or rather indirect exposure to the credit crunch. Others admit to a low sentiment in the market caused by the blip in economic stride.
"There are a lot of positive indicators for this year's results of DSF. We are planning to achieve the same results as last year. This would be a big success given the global outlook and we are almost there," Foud Mansour Sharaf, vice-president of Mall of the Emirates said.
He said that the retail sector is not as affected as some of the other sectors. "People are still attached to shopping. In the long term, we will get life back to normal, hopefully."
Meanwhile, Al Maya Group, supermarket chain, has had a different experience. "We have done fine when it comes to food items, but luxury goods are not selling the same way," Kamal Vachani, director of group said to Gulf News.
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"On a greater perspective, it's not that badly affected. We have to wait and see after the DSF that this trend continues as far as supermarkets are concerned," he said. Vachani also said that there has been a shortfall in tourists this year, compared to last year.
Piyush Mathur, regional managing director of Middle East, North Africa and Pakistan at The Neilsen Company, retail analysts, said, "These are difficult times for the world economy. With so many jobs being lost, consumers are prioritising their needs and while they continue to consume basic necessities, they become very conservative about discretionary spending. Hence, some product categories are suffering much more than others."
On the other hand, he said that expectations are that DSF this year would perform at least as much as last year, "which I believe would be a great achievement in this global crisis".
On similar lines, Eckart Woertz, programme manager economics, Gulf Research Centre said that the current economic downturn could lead to less spending by tourists as well as residents.
If there might be a mixed-view picture on the retail industry, he says the figures are over-played. "They [retailers] want to provide a more positive picture. I have my doubts about that, at least starting from the fourth quarter of 2008," Woertz said.
Another analyst says that retail revenues for this year's DSF will fail to bolster annual tally. "With the DSF historically making up a quarter of annual sales for some retailers, much depends on the success of this year's shopping festival. DSF 2009, thus far, has not yet had the effect of boosting retail sales, to the extent we have seen in the past," said Bobby Sarkar, an analyst at Al Mal Capital, a research firm.
A struggle for retail is in the outlook for this year, he says. However, prospects of an economic recovery along with a somewhat-renewed pickup in spending in the latter part of 2009 should act as a bigger catalyst for the retail sector, he added.
