The global economic slowdown has failed to dampen thespirits of the booming retailing industry in Oman. The industry has recorded growth in the first half of 2009 despite the global economic
recession. Retailing majors in the Sultanate are confident that the worst is over and their outlook for the second half of the year is positive.

The big supermarkets and hyper markets saw a healthy growth during the period. Sale of grocery and electronic items registered growth despite cautious spending by customers. Increased footfall at the malls compensated for the cautious spending. Retailing giants streamlined their operation in the face of global recession and took steps to attract new
customers and cement the loyalty of existing customers. They ran new promotions and spent more on advertisement during the period as a strategy to attract customers.

The recession seems to have also resulted in some innovative thinking on the part of retailing majors to capitalise on their strengths. The Lulu hypermarket chain is planning to extend the range of Lulu brand products sold by it by introducing more Lulu brand food and non food items.

It seems that some of the retailing majors are planning to strengthen backward integration to bring more stability to the business. New items were introduced by retailing industry to attract customers. Some of them reduced prices and some others introduced prize scheme for buyers.

“The supermarkets and hypermarkets have been totally immune to the economic slowdown. We have seen positive growth compared to last year and the situation did not warrant any drastic
steps from our side,” said V Nandakumar, Group Corporate Communications Manager, EMKE Group in an exclusive chat with Oman Vistas. “The luxury retailing might have faced some impact of the global meltdown as compared to our industry,” added Nandakumar.

On the strategy implemented by the group in times of recession he said “We have in fact beefed up our range of “own label” LULU products, which cover most of the food categories. These “LULU
BRANDED” products are sourced from some of the top manufacturers and sold at a very competitive price compared to other established brands. We have seen tremendous growth in this segment and plan to introduce more products to over all categories of food and non-food products,” he concluded.

“The global financial meltdown has not affected the retailing sector in Oman much and the impact here is less compared to other parts of the world,” said Sarfraraz Ismail, Retail Development Manager, Salman Stores in an exclusive interview granted to Oman Vistas. While the customers tended to spend less, more number of customers visited stores which lead to increase in business, he said.

On the steps taken to promote business in difficult times he said the chain introduced new products and held aggressive promotional campaigns. We are to launch loyalty programmes with lots of surprises to loyal customers, he added.

The current global economic downturn has not affected Captial Store LLC, said Haider Jawad Sultan, managing director in a special interview to Oman Vistas. He also expressed the view that the new and smaller players in the retailing sector may be affected. “We have loyal clients including corporate clients who have great confidence in us and the brands we sell.

A majority of them are Omani Nationals, he said on the client base of Capital Store. He added that the Capital Store had launched novel schemes to attract customers including gifts on purchases they made. Retailing industry dealing with electronic goods have not felt the impact of economic slowdown during the first half of current year, said George Alexander, divisional manager of Omasco in an exclusive interview given to Oman Vistas.

“Oman being prudent in its development plans as well as the local population driving the major component purchases, the retailing remained largely unaffected,” he said. On the strategiesimplemented to tide over the crisis resulting from the recession, Mr. George Alexander said new products were launched along with new offerings and promotions to attract consumers.

The experience of retailing industry during the first half of current year is mixed, said C.K Shankar, Retail Manager - Emart, of Suhail Bahwan group striking a slightly different note in an interview to Oman Vistas. While the consumer spending was low in large appliances namely air conditioners, refrigerators and washing machines vis-a-vis 2008, spending on LCD televisions and laptops remained high, he said.” We have seen a spurt in sales of large appliances also in the last couple of months,” added Shankar.

He observed that the middle class customers were cautious in spending money on lifestyle products, the upper class did not show any such restraint. Shankar said the group offered better prices to customers and increased the efficiency of the system in the face of slowdown. The retailing industry is affirmative that the fear psychosis over recession is no more evident and is generally hopeful that the coming festival season will register higher growth.