Shop Till You Drop

Now they put you up in a Hotel Apartment where there is a possibility to cook your food. So what’s the next thing you do – find out a place to buy your grocery? Now there is no “Kiran Kirana Bhandar” or “ Santosh Stores” around. You need to find the nearest Supermarket – one stop solution for all your needs. It reminds me of one of our partners in India – Tej Control. Their visiting card read at the end,” Tej Controls – one stop solution for your Automation needs.”
Now the nearest to the “Golden Sands 9” was Spinney’s. It’s a big chain of Supermarkets.
There are four big chains in UAE – Spinney’s, LuLu, Choitram & Carrefour – British, Keralite, Indian & French.
To me Kerala is God’s own country – so I dare not club it with India.

Now all the Supermarkets cater to different taste and have different strategy.

LuLu caters mostly to Indian and more specifically to Keralite taste. It was founded by Mr. Yousaf Ali M.A, a person who came with Rs 1000 to Dubai and has made a fortune in one generation. Now he the MD & Chairman of EMKE group, one of the biggest Indian conglomerate in Middle East. LuLu is not only in UAE but throughout the Gulf and now he plans to open 50 Supermarkets in India. You name it and you get it in LuLu.

Choitram – they started as traders in Dubai way back in sixties and then diversified to supermarkets as one of their businesses. They are the first to open Supermarkets in the posh Communities and serve the Europeans with their choice – but if you want to have Nuremberger “Bratwurst” in Dubai, you need to pay the price. They are niche players, in short.

Spinney’s also caters to Europeans but also to classy India expatriates. They have a tie up with HSBC, so if you bank with HSBC, you got to go to Spinney’s to take out money. They also have MMI – i.e. from where you can buy Liquor by providing your license. Focused business with strong customer base – mostly Brits & Russians. They have the best of Bakery among all Supermarkets.

Carrefour is huge. They have very few outlets but they are like Wal-Mart, “Everyday Low Prices”. They cater to all tastes but with a little inclination towards the Arabic people. They are so huge that you can safely move around with your “date” even when your wife is there in the same supermarket, lost in one of the aisles. The butchery section & Fish section is quite big – even they offer “whole” goat – if you are interested.

Now these were the branded ones. Besides these there are lot of small to big shopping malls in most localities + local Grocery shops , which can in some way related to Kiran & Santosh as mentioned above.

But what fascinates me is the fact that all the supermarkets & Grocery shops can sustain by themselves. This makes one thing very clear – the purchasing power of people in Dubai is quite high.