You could be forgiven for thinking you’re in Dragon Mart and not Gitex Shopper

“Steam iron for your robes, right here!” an Asian man calls in perfect Arabic, pointing to an array of boxes.

Walking here, you could be forgiven for thinking you were in Dragon Mart, but these stalls selling cheap home electronics from China, Malaysia and Singapore line the periphery of Gitex Shopper.

Gitex Shopper usually evokes images of the latest tech products from cameras to ultrabooks, but these exhibitors are selling everything from vacuum cleaners at Dh220, steam irons for Dh100, turbo juicers for Dh250, a 360- degrees rotating iPad case for Dh50, portable chargers for smartphone at Dh180 and head massagers for Dh120.

They are quick to counter the stereotype that the “Made in China” label implies cheap but poor quality products.

“Every smartphone now is made in a factory in China. You can’t say all Chinese is cheap,” said Edwin Salindong, a salesman at the Malaysian Expo Holding.

The crowd at the new Gitex Shopper location in the Dubai World Trade Centre is harder to please than those in the previous venue at the Airport Expo, he added.

“At the Airport Expo, business was good… it’s a different crowd here. At the expo the crowd was buying, here they are just looking,” he said.

One consumer said these exhibitors caught his attention more than the tech players.

Pushy sales staff, promoters hired for the show without product knowledge and the disappointment of not finding the latest technology made Mohammad Jamal, a visitor to Shopper, wander to the quieter corners of the show to look at the home appliances here.

“The man gave me a demo and explanation,” he said, pointing to a vacuum cleaning stand. “I will buy from him.”

Others had concerns about the quality of the products. “My first priority is quality… I don’t like use-and-throw products,” said Santosh Manyan, who was browsing the stalls.