Dubai’s retailers in constant bid to raise game

One of the scariest things for a small new entrant in a market is the fear of large, well-established players already there. Quite often, such situations result in the new player being swatted out of existence.

The methods are many — price wars, blocking new locations, choking buyers with goods, massive promotions, all weapons in the armoury of competition. In his recent book David and Goliath, Malcolm Gladwell shows us another perspective to these unequal clashes. He explains that many such battles have been won by the smaller and weaker participant as in the old biblical story, not by luck, or divine intervention, but rather by redefining the perspective of the battle, by using different weapons, or an unexpected, unconventional approach.

Often, large and ponderous opponents are not able to readjust their game quickly enough to be able to outplay the new entrant.

He also makes the case that the sheer pressure of adverse circumstances, desirable difficulties as he calls them, also forces people to find inner strengths and the ability to go outside their natural comfort zones, finding unexpected success. This is really uplifting and encouraging stuff for newer and smaller players who are trying to enter well-entrenched markets.

The story of how an upstart company called Amazon took on the mighty Barnes and Noble by shifting the rules of the game are now legend. Amazon called itself the largest bookstore in the world on the strength of the stocks that it could draw upon from hundreds of publishers, giving it almost limitless supplies. The large-format B&N bookshops at the time carried actual stocks of around 200,000 titles. Amazon has become the largest online retailer in the world today.

Emirates’ example

There are, of course, a number of such corporate examples around us, the best-known being of the — then — upstart airline called Emirates, which took on the established players in 1985 with the skilful adoption of the hub-and-spoke approach. It has interestingly enough become a Goliath today. But other small players like AirArabia are finding success, fighting the battle on their own terms, and not on those of the established players.

In the area of banking, RAKBank cleverly outpaced many slower and more ponderous rivals with its single-minded focus on the small consumer banking experience in a market while everyone else was chasing big accounts. Even in the field of supermarkets and groceries, names like Grand Supermarkets and Nesto have gained strength and size, following a policy of not competing head on with the big players but, rather, going where other supermarkets had not gone and quickly dominating those markets, becoming big fish in small ponds.

Talking about well-established players, it is interesting to see the battle of the gold jewellery giants that is now on. As if the region did not have enough competition in this segment, suddenly a new elephant has decided to enter the room. And enter it with a bang!

As a result Kalyan Jewellers, Malabar Gold and Joy Alukkas — the three mega Indian jewellery players — are engaged in a serious game of one-upmanship. The new kid on the block landed in the city recently with six new stores in one day, hyped by a bevy of superstars from Indian films.

The whole city has been plastered with their outdoor ads — and in a DSF month, this is no inexpensive exercise. The other two players have responded with their own superstars and the battle is so intense, you could be forgiven for thinking that you were in the streets of Mumbai.

No space for smaller players

With Damas visibly trying to reposition itself, the conflict of the three majors is not leaving much space for the smaller players in the 22-carat gold jewellery business. It is going to be interesting to see where this water finally finds its level.

One thing is for sure, in this shopping period, it has focused a lot of attention on the jewellery business and the gold souk, which can only be good news for dealers there.

The DSF itself is following its usual trajectory in terms of retail business, with a very busy first week, and then a quiet second and third week. The trade is now gunning for the last week, when they expect the customers to come in to take advantage of the offers on hand so that they can achieve their hyped up budgets.

The Festival seems to get more and more sophisticated with each year and could now be said to have matured. The quality of entertainment and the activities around the city never seem to peak and just keep getting better and better.

— The writer is CEO of Tridayle Consult FZE, a retail consultancy.