Dubai Shopping

With dozens of malls and souks selling everything from tiny toys to top class cars, Dubai has turned itself into a virtual astral cluster of shopping points. There are several reasons why one will enjoy Dubai shopping.

One world renowned attraction in Dubai is Dubai Shopping Festival. This event, usually held in the winter months of January-February each year, is a time of fat discounts, mind-blowing promotions, mad sales, luring raffles, and craze-ridden buyers. Children too have entertaining items, gaming stalls, food outlets, kid street fairs, fireworks, cultural performances, and lot more.

If you plan to be there, you need to have your logistics well-planned. The months of Dubai Shopping Festival being a busy season for corporate meetings and conferences, hotels become full and very expensive. Keep this in mind.

Then there is Dubai Summer Surprises, an event replicating Dubai Shopping Festival held during the summer vacations for schools during June-August. Around this time, the hotel accommodation is at the lowest.

Then there are the regular reasons for doing Dubai shopping: Dubai’s wonder-land-like shopping malls. These malls are far more than just selling points. In a scorching weather like Dubai’s, they provide great relief to people from sweltering heat. They are also great social meet up points, with huge crowds spending time in countless cafes and restaurants. People conscious of health and looks find gym, spa and beauty salons here. Most malls have cinema halls, art galleries, kid fun centers, and much more.

Dubai Shopping is enjoyable not only because of what you get there. For people who enjoy haggling, Dubai shopping is a great bargain place, whether they shop in a sophisticated mall or a traditional souk.

The best buys in Dubai Shopping are carpets, textiles, gold, spices, and perfumes. There is also a very different shopping place – the Karama Center, for a great street-side shopping experience. This place offers the cheapest prices; and of course, one will also be watchful for fake and counterfeit products.

Dubai Electronics Shopping

If you travel to Dubai, the first on your to-do list will surely be electronics shopping. Dubai is a city that flourishes on tourist craze. So, they have created a fantasy land of shopping malls showcasing everything under the sun.

Electronics shopping is an engrossing activity for every tourist here. There are too many malls with scores of leading shops in each one of them. Go on listing with names like Deira City Centre, Walls of Emirates, Al Abraj Center, Festival Center, Souk Madinat Jumeirah, and so on. You will be tired of the long list.

While on your Dubai electronics shopping jaunt, you will find every brand. Dubai electronics shopping carts of most tourists will be generally filled with laptops, IT accessories, audio systems, LCD devices, mobiles, cameras, calculators, electronic diaries and such items.

Dubai electronics shopping can give you unbeatable prices. The city, with its open port policy, has low import duties and no taxation. As a result the prices are always very low, even for major brand name products.
You can do your Dubai electronics shopping through various channels. You have regular smaller shops dotting all over Dubai. Or visit the starry bigger malls with clusters of electronics shops. Go to the duty free shops. Dubai electronics shopping is a hit online too. Explore the internet and you will find loads of information on where to do your Dubai electronics shopping.

Dubai is a city with a blend of modern malls and traditional souks. Finally, do not forget that you can happily do some bargaining in the souks. Ask for discounted prices without any hesitation, especially if you pay by cash.

Dubai Duty Free Shopping

Dubai duty free shopping may save you only the local or national taxes applicable in Dubai. But, it is not really duty free because you need to pay duties and taxes applicable in the destination country. It is good for you to have this understanding.

Dubai Duty Free shopping at Dubai International Airport, offers a gamut of products like perfumes, cosmetics, gold, jewelry, electronic gadgets, cigarettes, alcohol and almost anything that you look for.

Growing from a turnover of USD 70 million in 1984 to USD 1.1 billion in 2008, Dubai Duty Free shopping has amazed the economic world by its business strategies.
Dubai duty free shopping has a reputation of being among the top duty free outlets in the world. Their promotional offers are incredible with fat discounts on its products. Their car raffle is unparalleled in the world. For the last twenty years, Dubai duty free shopping have been raffling one luxury car every week on an average. So far, over 1400 Dubai duty free shopping customers have won luxury cars like BMW, Mercedes, Porsche, Jaguar, Rolls Royce or Ferrari.

Dubai duty free shopping remains open round the clock. Most duty free shops have clustered at the departure area. There are a few at the arrivals area too.
There has been a basket of mixed customer opinions about Dubai duty free shopping. However, disappointments outnumber appreciations. The disapproval include huge overpricing, rudeness of sales people, scamming, less value for money, etc.

Next time you want to explore the wonders of Dubai duty free shopping, go there with discretion rather than temptation.

Dubai Car Shopping

Car Shopping in Dubai is definitely exciting. But if you want to buy a car there, you need to be a residence visa holder. If you do not have one, you cannot be a legal owner of a car in Dubai.

Dubai gives you a fabulous experience in Car shopping, with several car sales outlets that offer you every range and brand of cars. But what exhilarate you are the rich car showrooms selling all kinds of luxury cars. Talking of the prices, cars in Dubai are cheaper than what they cost you in the European countries, except UK.

If you go on car shopping, you will find that there is a popular demand for cars from Japan, South Korea and Germany. Apparently, people feel convinced that cars from eastern countries are better designed for Dubai’s heat conditions and last longer.
The ruthless heat of Dubai plays a key role in your choosing a car. This may be the reason that cars like Ferrari are not much in demand because their engines are seen as unsuitable to the heat conditions. You will not want to spend a fortune on a luxury car if you are not comfortable in it with the flared up sun lurking outside to scorch you.

It is interesting and somewhat weird the way people look at cars in Dubai. A regular Toyota or a Hyundai may give you the luxury of inside comfort conditions even in the desert’s heat. Contrary to this, the known luxury cars like Ferraris and Porsches may not offer that comfort against the Dubai weather.

One luxury car that is greatly chosen is Mercedes. This car is seen to have been built taking the temperature factor perfectly into account.

Dubai car shopping is bound to change your perception of luxury. The blistering heat of this emirate kingdom will teach you how the regular cars turn into luxurious ones and the luxurious into ordinary cars.

Dubai Carpet Shopping

If you think of buying carpets, Dubai is next only to Iran. It is a pleasure doing carpet shopping in Dubai. You will see a whole range of Persian carpets in the Dubai carpets market. One thing that you need to know for your carpet shopping is how to determine the quality of carpets.

Generally, the quality of carpets is judged in terms of the quality of dyes used, the number and density of knots per square inch and of course whose make it is. Interestingly, silk carpets are seen to be more valuable than the others.

Most carpets are from Iran, Kashmir and Turkey. The Iranian carpets are generally more expensive than the others. This is because the Iranian carpets are finished using natural dyes, which are highly desirable unlike the others where artificial dyes are used.

Your Dubai visit is incomplete without carpet shopping. Certain Iranian carpets are handmade from silk. The most renowned in the country is the Blue Souq in Sharjah, for your best Dubai carpet shopping experience. They offer a whole range of carpets at unbeatable prices.

During your carpet shopping, you can also consider the carpets from India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, which too are of high quality. Knowing broadly about machine made and hand-woven carpets, dyes used, knots per square inch etc will help you make the right choice. Bargaining is no taboo. Use all your bargaining skills and make the best of your carpet shopping.

Lastly, most sellers are customer-oriented and hence buy carpets back or barter them for similar value products. This is for your knowledge.

The Village Mall

The Village Mall combines a queer mix of unusual, one-off designer shops like the Ayesha Depala Boutique and some of the most popular international brands to make a visit to the mall a memorable experience. With some of the city’s cult-status boutiques drawing Dubai‘s socialites and the curious visitor alike, the Village Mall is anything but what its name portrays! For instance, Luxe Couture showcases some of the most sophisticated, urban clothing handpicked from around the world while S*uce underlines its spirit of full-blooded colour and fun. A visit to the Shakespeare’s Café is well worth your time, what with its chintzy décor and the lure of its spectacular desserts. The Village Mall has what it takes to rank as one of your personal favorites – a fact testified by visitors and tourists by the thousands.

Inspired by the Mediterranean, this mall has top-notch boutiques in a continental setting. The Mediterranean people are well known for their cosmopolitan passion for the good things in life, and The Village Mall apparently seeks to bring the best of the Mediterranean in its eclectic selection of shopping, dining and lifestyle offerings.

One of the major draws of the Village Mall is its convenient location. Nestled off Jumeirah Road, it is an ideal pit stop between the charming neighborhood cafés and the inviting beach.

With every facility needed to indulge you, such as the Sensasia Urban Spa for instance, the Village Mall is also among the more relaxing of mall destinations. Peekaboo, the children’s play area, is bright and fun for younger children. It also runs activities for your kids, and the numerous thoughtful aspects of this mall make it a must-visit place for tourists and visitors.

Dubai Gold Souk

You must have heard of Dubai Gold Souk, the gold market. Dubai gold souk is situated in Al Dhagaya at the center of eastern Dubai’s business district Deira.

When you are in Dubai, walk through Dubai gold souk. There are over 300 gold and diamond retailers lining the Dubai gold souk. Every shop showcases an exquisite range of artfully and luxuriously crafted gold and diamond jewelry. At Dubai gold souk every shop, big or small, will maintain surprisingly equal level of operations.

It is said that the total stocks at the Dubai gold souk will exceed 10 tons at any point of time. Dubai’s free trade policy has encouraged gold and jewelry traders from India and Iran to open shops in the Dubai gold souk since 1940′s. Dubai gold souk is known to offer the cheapest prices in the world.

You need to know a few little secrets when you shop at Dubai gold souk. Visit the souk in the evenings and enjoy the glitter. Keep a lot of time to move from shop to shop. Find what you want, ask for prices. But do not buy. Return to the souk next day in daylight. Take another look at your choices and ask for the prices. Quite likely you will see the difference in the looks of the material or the prices. The evening’s lights can deceive.

Feel free to bargain. In most places you can haggle and get discounts as neat as 20%. You should know that the shops there are very keen on matching the competition’s prices. So you stand to gain. That is the golden world of Dubai Gold Souk.

Dubai Spice Souk

Dubai Spice Souk is a traditional market for fresh Arabic spices in Dubai that attracts visitors in very large numbers. Next time you are in Dubai put Dubai spice souk on your list of places to visit. Dubai Spice souk is located in the business district of Deira in eastern Dubai, right next to Dubai gold souk.

The souk has several narrow lanes along which you will find arrays of spice shops. These shops sell a variety of gastronomical delights that include spices, dried fruits, nuts fragrances and herbs imported from across the Middle East. Shopping at spice souk gives you a special, fabulous experience of shopping in an open-air market.

As you wade through these lanes, the mixed aroma of cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, incense, nuts, dry fruits and scores of other spices will just ensnare you to buying at least a few of these spices. Once you stop at a shop to buy something, there is a strong likelihood that your will find some rare types of spice that may be unknown to you.

Haggling is a grand highlight of spice souk. So, do not hesitate to dwell on prices when you are shopping in spice souk.

Dubai Spice Souk is a friendly place. The shopkeepers are very welcoming, helpful and accommodating.

You will find these spices as fantastic gift items. You can always have them in your shopping bags as nice, unique give-away for your friends and relatives.

With the onslaught of bigger shops and supermarkets in recent times, the trading volumes in Dubai spice souk have diminished quite significantly. This is a sad but inevitable part of the spice souk story.

Reef Mall Dubai

Dubai shopping experience can be very tiring for the sheer reason of too many malls and too many choices at hand for you to make your decision. One major problem all visitors to Dubai face is that shopping is too tempting but the resources of time and money are scanty.

In the middle of this bombardment, Reef Mall gives a refreshing shopping experience. The very design of the mall is different from many malls that you see in Dubai. The layout of the mall ensures that the shops are located in a distributed fashion all over the mall and the whole place is airy and fashionable. This facilitates a casual and enjoyable meandering all across the mall, even while you engage yourself in shopping what you are there for.

All these things do not mean to say that the mall is a high-end one. But, the layout is less stressful on your energies and the prices do not squeeze your purse too much. Although these views are ridden with apparent self-contradictions, what is indisputable is that Reef Mall definitely gives you a different experience.

There are about 90 shops housed in this mall beautifully spread out. All the goods are organized thoughtfully, assuming a certain pattern in customer’s needs, tastes and attitudes. Whether you are looking for books, groceries, baby care products, electronics items, textile, clothing, women’s apparel, lingerie, fashion wear, health services, pharma products, optic items, game parlors, currency exchange counters or anything else – they are all there well organized.

When you finish your saunter through the mall and feel tired and hungry, there are very good eateries supplying you with very pleasing carte du jour. Many people who have visited Reef Mall just put it in simple words – It is such a fantastic mall!

Emirates Hills Dubai

Imitating the name of the popular Beverly Hills in the Hollywood world, Emirates Hills is a secured community in Dubai. As the first freehold property ever sold in the city of Dubai, most of the people living here are expatriates. Cradled in lush green surroundings of the two prestigious golf courses, the Montgomerie and the Emirates, this is a most coveted living area, planned in an inimitable style. The location is also enclosed by about 20 beautiful, heart-warming blue lakes.
This celebrated satellite city of ultra luxury villas is rich with floodlit tennis course, a huge swimming pool, playing zones for children, a high-end shopping mall, and several entertainment spaces.

The plot sizes in this area range from a moderate 12,000 sft to spacious 45,000 sft. Although the villas in Emirates Hills are in seclusion from each other, the whole place looks connected because of the shaded walkways. Almost all the structures in this estate predominantly bear the stamp of classical architecture of the Middle East.

The project, developed by Emaar Properties, has been sold to expatriate individuals on per square foot basis, for residential purposes. There are many VVIP personalities who own property in Emirates Hills. Majority of these are from the Indian sub-continent, Western Europe and Iran. In fact, this colony of luxury living creates a benchmark for other similar development projects.

To put it quickly, Emirates Hills is a township that holds huge wealth and tasteful ways of many people who are leading names in their own countries. Emirates Hills is a class by itself. No matter which country you belong to, if you are rich enough to afford, you too can have the unique Emirates Hills life.