The arrival of Amazon-branded goods this week on regional e-tailer souq.com wasn’t all that remarkable in itself, unless you’re the kind of person who gets excited by those practical packing cubes Amazon uses and computer cables offered under the label AmazonBasics. Be that as it may, big changes are afoot. And if you can’t already hear the stomping march of the mighty online warrior into the region, it will soon become hard to ignore.
Amazon’s US$580 million (Dh2.1 billion) acquisition of Souq this spring opened the door to the next step in the evolution of online shopping in the region. Amazon brings the cachet of a global name, and the expectation that its full catalogue and benefits are not far off. That isn’t to say that it’s the only one challenging the dominance of mall shopping in the region: close to home, there is wadi.com and noon.com, expected some time this year.
Farther afield, Farfetch, the online fashion site based in London, offers luxury goods delivered to your door in Dubai within a mere 90 minutes, the same amount of time (with a big dose of hyperbole, we grant) some say it takes to get in and out of Dubai Mall’s car park on a busy day. Other global fashion sites have started to target the region with offers of free delivery, Ramadan promotions and customer service in Arabic.
The inevitable growth in online shopping, coupled with the arrival of VAT next year, should have local retailers thinking seriously about ways to up their game. If they can’t offer better value, then they would be wise to improve the shopping experience, starting with much needed improvements to customer service. Mall culture is a healthy part of the UAE’s social fabric, but if brick-and-mortar retailers don’t improve their offerings, it’ll mostly be the food court that gets the business.
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The White Lotus: Season three
Creator: Mike White
Starring: Walton Goggins, Jason Isaacs, Natasha Rothwell
Rating: 4.5/5
MATCH INFO
Uefa Champions League quarter-final, second leg (first-leg score):
Manchester City (0) v Tottenham Hotspur (1), Wednesday, 11pm UAE
Match is on BeIN Sports
Banned items
Dubai Police has also issued a list of banned items at the ground on Sunday. These include:
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Political flags or banners
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Bikes, skateboards or scooters
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
How to wear a kandura
Dos
- Wear the right fabric for the right season and occasion
- Always ask for the dress code if you don’t know
- Wear a white kandura, white ghutra / shemagh (headwear) and black shoes for work
- Wear 100 per cent cotton under the kandura as most fabrics are polyester
Don’ts
- Wear hamdania for work, always wear a ghutra and agal
- Buy a kandura only based on how it feels; ask questions about the fabric and understand what you are buying
