New Information on Consumption patterns in UAE: More food on the roll.

According to a recent study on consumer trends on UAE, it has been concluded that consumer spending on food has grown steadily over the period since 1990. Of course the growing population has contributed to this as well.

The expatriates and in particular the bachelors basically rely on processed food. Other then this important section of the population, a large number of processed and packaged products is consumed. Frequently consumed food products include milk, yoghurt, ice cream and confectionery. All these items are widely available in supermarkets and grocery stores.

Cocooning is rapidly taking over in UAE. The credit card purchases have increased over the last 5 years by almost 117%. Basically the cards are being used for purchasing luxury items, beauty products, perfumes, designer items. But there is no reason why it should not be happening for food. One does wonder why the consumer prefers the market for food shopping.

Can you imagine how would these supermarkets function without the numerous assistants and salespersons?

Shopping is more about experience. Where a phone call to a nearby grocery store may deliver you your required items, why would you still want to go to the supermarket yourself? There are 2 reasons basically. One: to have more choices, and two: consumer loyalty. Both these features are components of an overall shopping experience.

A small shop with limited brands of items cannot compete with the impact a supermarket would create, with more than 50 brands of olive oil, rows and rows of grocery, all categorized, the big area feeling, the people etc. All of this forms an impact. Similarly the consumer loyalty depends a lot upon the kind of reception he has had in the past. This is the basic rule of marketing, i.e. creating customer loyalty.

Then what is different in web-sites? Nothing. Even B2C e-commerce has to face the same issues i.e. customer loyalty. The main emphasis is upon building traffic and sustaining customer loyalty. Smaller firms usually are unable to carve a niche for themselves mainly because of the marketing giants already present on the scene. Also the online shoppers tend to be price-sensitive and if they don’t like a site’s deals, all they have to do is click the red cross at the top right of the window. They can be easily lured away, so acquiring and keeping new customers is difficult. Live greeters do this for you. The moment a consumer opens your site, the web greeter will greet him in a java enabled window. This grabs the attention of the customer immediately. Then after inquiring about the item customer is looking for, the web greeter offers options as well as categories based on brands, size, price range etc. The customer loves the anonymity to quote the price he is comfortable with. While at this, the live greeter will also ask if the customer would like to purchase other items that people usually get with that item. The emotion/feeling of being able to choose at free will is immensely captivating. This is what web greeters make use of. This gains us the consumer’s trust and loyalty, and eventually permanent traffic.