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Buoyant mood as 8-day tech sale comes to close [Gulf News (United Arab Emirates)]
[October 04, 2014]

Buoyant mood as 8-day tech sale comes to close [Gulf News (United Arab Emirates)]


(Gulf News (United Arab Emirates) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Dubai: It is not just retailers and organisers who are in buoyant mood after the eight-day shopping extravaganza came to a close, consumers are also enthusiastic after securing big bargains.



The promotions and bundled offers have paid off, with retailers reporting a boost in revenues compared to last year.

The official figures of footfall and revenues are expected to be released late next week.


"The overall show has been fantastic. The visitors were happy and the retailers have given a very positive feedback," Rajesh Gopinath, exhibitions director of consumer cluster at DWTC, told Gulf News.

HP, participating for the first time at Shopper, has reported a double digit growth in sales compared to last year's participation with key retailers.

"The traditional thinking of laptops are slowing down has really changed. The laptop sales have exceeded our expectations. The buyers bought all mid-range and high-end laptops," said Mathew Thomas, general manager for Printing and Personal Systems at HP Middle East.

Many retailers have sweetened certain deals to make it more attractive on the last day.

Yesterday, HP offered a six-inch Slate phablet worth Dh699 with HP 360 i3 laptop for Dh2,399.

Many retailers have changed the deals often as the crowd started to grow bigger from afternoon. Because of Eid Al Adha, the crowd was not that big in the morning.

As part of the crazy deals, two Nokia 630 phones with bundled offers were sold for Dh999 at Plug Ins. The normal price of Nokia 630 is Dh599.

Sharaf DG was selling two Lenovo S650 for Dh899 while the original cost of the phone is Dh699.

Jacky's was giving free Lenovo tablet plus Lenovo A3300 tablet with Lenovo Flex laptop for Dh2599.

Eid gift Jumbo was selling Huawei's Ascend P7 plus TalkBand wearable device for Dh1,699 but yesterday it sweetened the offer with a 32-inch LED TV.

Abdul Razak, 38, from Oman, said the Samsung GC100 camera tempted him to buy four for his relatives as an Eid gift.

Samsung offered the GC100 Wi-Fi plus NFC camera for Dh999 plus 16GB memory card, power bank and back pack for Dh999 instead of the usual price of Dh1,899.

Razak has been here for the last three days scrambling for bargains.

"I bought the 55-inch 4K TV plus the MacBook Pro offer for Dh7,999. It was an amazing offer. I want to buy a camera. I heard the deals get bigger towards the close. I will wait till then," he said.

Gopinath said that the home appliances segment has been very encouraging as some vendors are taking part for the first time.

"After the show, we will be sitting down with them [home appliances] and discuss on how to take this forward," he said.

The organisers are hoping to bring home appliances as a segment in next year's event.

"We want the visitors to give a choice and let them make a choice. The number of brands have increased at this event compared to last year. We are expected to do better than last year and that is for sure, regarding footfall and sales revenue," he said.

Before the event, retailers were expecting smartphones to be the crowd puller but it has been laptops and then smartphones.

"Laptops are making a comeback and they are not dead yet. The tablets have been cannibalising Shopper for the past couple of years. People have realised that tablets have limitations," said Nadeem Khanzadah, head of retail at Jumbo Electronics.

Jumbo is extending the Gitex offers till October 11 at their retail outlets as part of Eid.

Retailers are not facing any out of stock issues except for the new iPhones.

"Our sales expectations were between 30 and 40 per cent growth and we will achieve it," said Neelesh Bhatnagar, CEO of Emax.

He said the buyers know that this is the one occasion "not to be missed" to benefit from the outstanding offers and promotions. Just as it creates value for consumers, Shopper is very important for retailers as it is a "major sales driver." Laptops have doing extremely well for Emax. Bhatnagar said that laptops are the top selling product at Gitex and smartphones at retail outlets, closely followed by smartphones at Gitex and TVs.

Top five revenue earners • Laptops • Smartphones • TVs • Cameras • Tablets N.K.C (c) 2014 Al Nisr Publishing LLC . All rights reserved. Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. (Syndigate.info).

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