Retailers report good sales during DSS

Every day hundreds of families from GCC countries arrive at the Dubai Airport. Rental car firms and taxi services, which earlier used to look at reducing the size of the fleet during summers, are now looking at increasing their fleet size to meet the demand.

While summers used to be a time, when marketing departments of organisations and advertising agencies could take it easy, and staff could leave for their annual leave along with their families - this no longer holds true - summers are as busy as any other season, if not more so.

Alistair Reid, Retail Operations Manager, Bhs, like many others is an extremely busy person this season. He is satisfied with the sales figures of all his three outlets at Lamcy Plaza, Burjuman and Al Ghurair. Each store attracts a different mix of customers, and the overall impact of the various DSS activities is high. Alistair believes that the key to capitalising on Dubai Summer Surprises is to complement DSS events and activities with their own marketing promotions mix - the right amount of advertising and sales promotion.

Alistair articulates, "We plan our marketing activities to support the Dubai Summer Surprises Themes. We time our annual one-month sale with the start of DSS on June 21. Visitor traffic at that time is high since people are buying gifts for their vacations. Besides these some of our clothing lines do very well for themes like Sports Surprises and Back-to-School Surprises. For instance, our active wear range is a sell-out during the Sports Surprises, since Sports is top-of-mind for everybody in Dubai during the week, and the physically fit performers in DSS events help to promote fitness in no small measure."

Asma Saruick, Operations Manager, Outfit, a retailer of clothing products at Burjuman Centre said, "We capitalise on Dubai Summer Surprises very well. Visitor traffic is very high during these months due to the events being organised within the mall. We convert this traffic to customers by attractive point-of-sale material. We started off with the Spring Summer Sale, which did exceptionally well. In August, we launched our Autumn Collection. Besides, we run several promotions like every 200 dirhams purchase will receive a gift voucher for 50 dirhams etc. These work very well for us indeed."

Gift store brands like Lifestyle, which deals in fashion accessories are doing very well. Mrs. Kaval Verma, Marketing Manager, Lifestyle at the Oasis Centre says, "Lifestyle is a fashion destination. Our line of products appeals to the young adult and the children, since it is very trendy and has high appeal. When the mall becomes the venue for events and activities that targets the young, we stand to benefit a lot. Oasis Centre was the venue for several DSS theme events, and we saw audiences to these events converting into active shoppers. DSS has given us the necessary exposure to our target audience, and our sales figures therefore are high."

Dipti Sahni of Woolworth, a store in City Centre said, "With the start of Dubai Summer Surprises, we saw a dramatic change in the way summer is perceived in Dubai. We saw a lot of tourists from Saudi who visited DSS during this period. Saudi tourists normally buy in bulk. The first two years of DSS were indeed very good for us, and they demonstrated that summers could be made into revenue earners for the company. "

Zaina Laham, General Manager, Zara City Centre, dealers in readymade garments and high fashion accessories said, "Summers without DSS would have been dull and quite. Our footfall has indeed increased, and we have seen an increase in sales, which might not have been the case without all the activities organised by the government departments."

Alex Grover, Store Manager, Mango at Burjuman said, "We see an increase during the first month of Dubai Summer Surprises, and then sales tapers towards the end. Since our line is high fashion garments, people tend to buy from us before they leave for their vacations."

Mohammed Sharief and Brothers, which is the market leader in travel accessories is doing well too. Manoj Kumar, Assistant Marketing Manager says, "Our store at Hamarain Centre is doing well this DSS. Visitor traffic to the mall is very high, due to the activities being organised there."

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