Mobile purchases to overtake desktop buys over holiday season



This holiday season shopping via mobile devices will overtake desktop purchases, with electronics accounting for 76 per cent of sales globally, according to Adobe Digital Index, the US market research firm.

The Christmas shopping season in the West is kick-started by Black Friday, also known as White Friday in the Mena region, on November 27 and Cyber Monday on November 30.

White Friday is expected to feed into the growing e-commerce segment, with one UAE industry player saying that online sales account for about 3 per cent of overall retail spending from just 1 per cent two years ago.

“E-commerce is now worth about US$7 billion per year in the Mena region,” said Omar Kassim, founder of the online marketplace JadoPado. “That figure can be skewed by what you include as e-commerce, but online shopping has approximately doubled in the region in the past 24 months.”

JadoPado has changed its business plan from an online retailer of electronics to a marketplace platform that hosts a variety of sellers and products. It recently sold a 14.8 per cent stake in its business for Dh14.69 million to an investor group led by Beco Capital, the venture capital firm, underlining the increasing interest in the sector.

“We now have 2,500 vendors on our site,” said Mr Kassim. “Forty-eight per cent of our traffic is from mobile platforms and conversion from mobile stands at 28 per cent.”

The White Friday shopping event, run by Souq.com in the region, last year generated six times more sales than normal and is expecting to double that number this year.

It is thought that the Black Friday moniker comes from the day when many retailers, which do not make a profit until the Christmas trading period, move from the red into the black. The earlier vendors can attract customers to start buying for Christmas the longer the shopping season lasts, hence Souq.com starting daily White Friday deals from today, but only via its mobile app.

The region's love of big-screen smartphones is thought to be a key driver of mobile commerce.

“Before, if you wanted to use your mobile to browse the internet in earnest, you needed a high-spec phone,” said Ronaldo Mouchawar, the chief executive of Souq.com.

“Now you have brands offering top-spec phones at a fraction of the price you would expect. This means that people who would not normally be able to afford a device of this nature are now able to purchase one. It is this democratisation of technology that is driving the natural uptake of mobile commerce”.

ascott@thenational.ae

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Sheikh Zayed's poem

When it is unveiled at Abu Dhabi Art, the Standing Tall exhibition will appear as an interplay of poetry and art. The 100 scarves are 100 fragments surrounding five, figurative, female sculptures, and both sculptures and scarves are hand-embroidered by a group of refugee women artisans, who used the Palestinian cross-stitch embroidery art of tatreez. Fragments of Sheikh Zayed’s poem Your Love is Ruling My Heart, written in Arabic as a love poem to his nation, are embroidered onto both the sculptures and the scarves. Here is the English translation.

Your love is ruling over my heart

Your love is ruling over my heart, even a mountain can’t bear all of it

Woe for my heart of such a love, if it befell it and made it its home

You came on me like a gleaming sun, you are the cure for my soul of its sickness

Be lenient on me, oh tender one, and have mercy on who because of you is in ruins

You are like the Ajeed Al-reem [leader of the gazelle herd] for my country, the source of all of its knowledge

You waddle even when you stand still, with feet white like the blooming of the dates of the palm

Oh, who wishes to deprive me of sleep, the night has ended and I still have not seen you

You are the cure for my sickness and my support, you dried my throat up let me go and damp it

Help me, oh children of mine, for in his love my life will pass me by. 

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The specs

Engine: 2.3-litre, turbo four-cylinder

Transmission: 10-speed auto

Power: 300hp

Torque: 420Nm

Price: Dh189,900

On sale: now

Directed by Sam Mendes

Starring Dean-Charles Chapman, George MacKay, Daniel Mays

4.5/5

NO OTHER LAND

Director: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal

Stars: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham

Rating: 3.5/5

Sheer grandeur

The Owo building is 14 storeys high, seven of which are below ground, with the 30,000 square feet of amenities located subterranean, including a 16-seat private cinema, seven lounges, a gym, games room, treatment suites and bicycle storage.

A clear distinction between the residences and the Raffles hotel with the amenities operated separately.

The bio

His favourite book - 1984 by George Orwell

His favourite quote - 'If you think education is expensive, try ignorance' by Derek Bok, Former President of Harvard

Favourite place to travel to - Peloponnese, Southern Greece

Favourite movie - The Last Emperor

Favourite personality from history - Alexander the Great

Role Model - My father, Yiannis Davos

 

 

The smuggler

Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple. 
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.

Khouli conviction

Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.

For sale

A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.

- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico

- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000

- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950

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Specs

Engine: Dual-motor all-wheel-drive electric

Range: Up to 610km

Power: 905hp

Torque: 985Nm

Price: From Dh439,000

Available: Now

The specs
Engine: 4.0-litre flat-six
Power: 510hp at 9,000rpm
Torque: 450Nm at 6,100rpm
Transmission: 7-speed PDK auto or 6-speed manual
Fuel economy, combined: 13.8L/100km
On sale: Available to order now
Price: From Dh801,800
The specs

Engine: Four electric motors, one at each wheel

Power: 579hp

Torque: 859Nm

Transmission: Single-speed automatic

Price: From Dh825,900

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The specs

AT4 Ultimate, as tested

Engine: 6.2-litre V8

Power: 420hp

Torque: 623Nm

Transmission: 10-speed automatic

Price: From Dh330,800 (Elevation: Dh236,400; AT4: Dh286,800; Denali: Dh345,800)

On sale: Now

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