Q8Ba7th Official Blog

Kuwait International Fair Co., established in 1971, is the oldest and I think the only exhibition company holding it’s own grounds, occupying huge space land. Ever since then however, the development rate of this exhibition is really in the micro-level and can barely be seen.

As I was planning to go to the 33rd Books Exhibition, being it Friday I wanted to make sure the exhibition is open. Going to their amaturish site, the Working hours section had only the main office working hours. What about the exhibition working hours? They didn’t just forget it. They knew it’s different, and they even say it:

OK, so where do we find the exhibition opening hours? In the Events Calendar? The worst exhibition event calendar I’ve seen. All it has is the name, dates, and halls of the exhibition. After 33 years of arranging this exhibition, don’t you have any more information to give? Such information as:

• Working hours
• # Participants
• Categories of books visitor could find
• Map of the area and categories inside it
• Stats about previous exhibitions, is it growing larger, and at what rate. How many people usually attend the exhibition? Such things are more critical to you, KIF, and the exhibitors than the customer how could you miss it?
• Specific page per exhibition is definitely needed. Some detailed specific information about each exhibition. Give value, give credit, grab attention. Only few exhibitions have links with very shallow information
• No galleries and past events information

Wanna laugh more? See the Halls Availability. If you can travel back in time, hopefully you can find empty halls back in 2006 or 7.

Eventually, we had to call relatives to find out they don’t open Friday morning. Going in the afternoon, at little before 4 PM, there was literally no note about when are the opening hours at the door. I had to ask the snacks seller outside who told me it opens at 4:30. To our surprise, the doors opened at 4 PM and people started going in. Going inside, there were so many booths without sellers, so I could basically take all I want and leave. Their argument was, opening hours are supposedly 4:30 PM. Good, then don’t open before it, and deliver the message clearly so that people don’t line up early ahead. And even after 4:30 PM, there were still booths without sellers, and even worse, some new comer newspapers had reserved the booth but could not afford to have a person standing there, so all there is was an empty table, or sometimes this was lacking also. You could see pile of newspapers lying on the floor, and that was all of it.

Such things are not bad for the exhibitor only, but is bad for the overall image of the exhibition and would drive people away from it. Good control and penalty should be imposed on exhibitors. You take the place, you use it. Empty space looks really bad and gives bad impression about the overall quality, and usefulness of the expo.

The variety of books I guess were large, but I really did not have enough time to look around (thanks to my kid!), however the best part for me was the arts section showing some really talented Kuwaiti drawings.

I will try to post the few snapshots I took when I figure why my HTC won’t beam, sync, or fails to upload to any image site I visit.

FINAL NOTE: The Arabic Books Exhibition is supposed to be a face of Kuwait, and so is the Kuwait International Fair Co. Yet, it is the only exhibition where I don’t see any people trying to run stats, get reviews, push forward and improve. It’s basically the same year after year. Thanks only yo those exhibitors who can tolerate it, and bring new stuff to it. I was personally really disappointed and shocked when I saw it. I don’t usually go there very often, and before, I did not think of how bad those expos are, how the quality and focus are completely behind. This year however, I could not take it.

Really wish to see some serious revamp in this huge garbaged area. Supposed to be modernized, but it’s all dirty and unwisely used.

Popularity: 26% [?]

Masahati.com is a new site, still not open to the public. In their words:

“Masahati.com is the most up-to-date property listings for homes, apartments, offices, commercial spaces, and more!
Rent, lease, buy, and sell property easily and effortlessly online. Your property is just a click away!”

Kuwait has already many real estate classified sites, but none is comprehensive enough yet, and what the site developed by BLUGREY seems to be promising is quite a challenge I say. If we follow their words by heart, they are going to provide online service for selling and leasing property, and that does not mean advertising it only. Ofcourse there is the paper work you can’t avoid eventually, but are they providing here a place where you can reserve the property, make some type of initial payment or something like that?

Not clear now. All you can do is register to be notified of launch date, but the site does look promising from far away.

Popularity: 27% [?]

Name: Dikani.com

Launch Date: Nov, 2008

Languages: English/Arabic

Brief: Dikani.com is like a virtual Kuwait mall for sellers to open their virtual store through it and start selling instantly. Each seller gets his own subdomain on the site, e.g. shop.dikani.com, and each seller pays monthly fees for Dikani based on number of items advertised.

Review: The implementation of Dikani is unique in Kuwait, and is one of the few software as a service providers here now as well. I’ve heard quite several people sharing a thought for such an idea in Kuwait, but this one is the first to see the light. I have to say I was personally not convinced the idea in this way would would be a success, but it seems with the excessive online advertisement campaign by Dikani, things are starting to get some attention.

Right now, there is a total of 5 stores and around 70 items. Not much compared to the size of advertisement it’s making, but it’s still a start, and with a couple of success stories, I can see more people joining in. A point also to make is, for some reason most advertisement clicks take to 404 page rather than Dikani main page, so this must be affecting their conversion.

The target seller I think is small to medium. Small shops who are looking for quick ways to reach online audience. But I think people with highest interest will be the freelancers who normally sell their stuff at home or through friend links. Such a trend is quite popular in Kuwait, and this might be a good chance for them.

The down side of this service however is the cost. Not anywhere else on the net have I seen such an expensive service, and I’m not talking about double the price only here. 45 KD for 20 items only as the minimum offer, and it goes up to 615 KD for 1000 items! The one month free startup is I think what’s keeping stores now open, but with this price it means any seller will only join if he can guarantee minimum of 100 KD income, in which case he can easily hire someone to develop him his own custom unique site and cut down the cost. 45 KD by it self I think is way too expensive, and to limit this price to 20 items only is another bad thing. We all know for that price you can buy a TB of storage. The cost includes service fees as well alright, but still I believe the cost is not justifiable. Compare this to Shopify, which allows 10 items for FREE, and 100 items for $24/month. This includes various customization and extra features that seems to be missing from Dikani.com. If there is one thing that will stand in the face of this service, I believe it would be the cost.

Pros:

• For sellers, quick and easy way to online sales
• Sellers will get FREE exposure among other stores on Dikani without having to make any advertisements, just as you would get FREE customers inside a real mall.
• Customers can shop multiple stores at the same time, and checkout only once.
• Freelance sellers without physical locations can utilize this to reach wider audience

Cons:

• Cost: Cost of the service is pretty high, and to be cost-effective for the seller, the customer may end up paying for extra profit margin on the items.
• Delivery: It’s really not clear how delivery is made. Some stores mention delivery, while others don’t. If they don’t mention the delivery, then what does that mean, and how can I get my item then? Do I have to drive there and get it? Doesn’t sound like online shopping then. Also, on my test checkout from multiple stores, all I got was a message that I will be contacted by the seller soon. I personally hate online shopping that ends up with phone calls, simply because it’s not 100% online and it’s not convenient. If I shop from 5 stores, I will get minimum of 5 calls, and I have no clue about the delivery time. Personally, I didn’t feel comfortable with it.
• Upon checkout, i did not receive any email confirmation for my order, which is really what I would rely on for future reference.
• Lack of customization: Without trying a seller account ofcourse, from the outside it seems to be lacking customization features per seller, which would allow them for more personalization.
• Support & Credibility: Most stores, or perhaps all of them, do not offer any refund or exchange policy. Many of them also are not real stores, and they are not people you know either. Those things would make me think twice and hesitate before buying from any of them. There are some real physical furniture stores however it seems joining the service.

Related Links:

Andra & my Backbone Review
Fonzation

Popularity: 28% [?]