DSF 2006-2007 receives increased response to invitations for retail trade registration

The registration, open to all interested retail outlets, will hopefully see numerous retail businesses take part in the biggest and the longest edition of the Dubai Shopping Festival held yet.

Officials at the DSF Office have said that the recent increase in registrations has been largely due to the financial and tourism forecasts that will see millions of visitors during this year's shopping carnival, in addition to the longer duration and the festive season that will include Christmas, New Year, and Eid-al-Adha. Retail outlets will hopefully benefit from these factors to better sales figures during the DSF.

"With only a short time left for the DSF to begin, we are seeing an increased demand for registrations and we anticipate this demand to continue till the 20th of January," said Mohammed Al Dehail, DSF Registration Officer.

The month of January is slated to rake in huge profits for retail outlets that can participate in six different categories. Although participation is open till January 20th, most retailers have registered their outlets to make the most of the shopping bonanza that will last a long 45 days.

The DSF 2006-2007 provides a unique opportunity to shoppers by offering two shopping seasons within one festival, the Offers & Gifts Season and the Sales and Discounts season. The former begins in the month of December and runs till the end of DSF. The "DSF Offers" category entails genuine offers imparting tangible benefits to the consumers. The participating outlets are entitled to a maximum of four free offers, and also included in this category are 'buy one get one free' offer, 'bundle of offers' and 'extra value' offer. The "DSF Raffles" category is open only to outlets owned by key sponsors. The "Offers category" also includes the DSF Gifts segment where gifts are given to shoppers when they shop for a certain amount or buy a particular brand or item in the store.

The Sales and Discounts Season, which opens in the beginning of January and runs till the end of the festival, is divided into three categories - DSF Sale, DSF Part Sale, and DSF Discount. The DSF Sale category entitles shoppers to buy goods at retail outlets where the entire merchandise will be marked down by 25% of prices prevailing just before the shopping festival. Retailers will have to provide documentation of proof of prices before DSF 2006-2007 for each item to facilitate checking by inspectors.

The DSF Part Sale category is even more interesting where at least 50% of the retail outlet should be on sale. The last category of the Sales and Discounts Season is DSF Discount where retail outlets offer discounts on 20% of the merchandise on the list price. The discounts must be genuine and proof of prevailing prices before DSF 2006-2007 must be available.

Interested parties are invited to submit completed application forms with relevant fees at the Department of Economic Development between 4pm to 8pm from Sundays to Thursdays and 10am to 2pm on Saturdays between November 20, 2006 and January 20, 2007.

The combined edition of DSF 2006-2007 will run from December 20, 2006 to February 2, 2007. The 45 days of family fun, entertainment and shopping frenzy will offer retrospective glimpses of the 10 previous editions combining the best of the best and promises to be even bigger and better.