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Dubai Shopping Hell !

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Dubai, not a shopping heaven at all !

Most of the people think Dubai as a great shopping destination and many believe in that.
Although Dubai IS a shopping heaven for some Middle East countries like Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan as for example in Iran, all the imported goods like clothes and shoes are really expensive except China goods that are mostly fake replicas of branded products, the prices are really expensive compare to Europe and America.
For example a branded hand bag like Louis Vuitton is selling 30% more in Dubai shopping malls.
There are mostly 5 major shopping malls in Dubai. Deira City Centre in Deira, Wafi Centre in Bur Dubai, Mall of the Emirates in Sheikh Zayed road, Dubai Mall in Dubai-Al Ain road and Ibn Battuta mall in far Sheikh Zayed road and more than 15 other malls hosting same mostly international brands and a street for replica lovers in Kerama area.
There is also a outlet mall in Dubai-Al Ain road that supposed to sell out dated clothes and products but they mostly sell fake replicas.
During Dubai Shopping Festivals each year, even when they promote their merchandises with huge discounts, you can still get better quality and price in Europe and America.

Then who buys and Dubai?

Most of the buyers in Dubai shops are locals, Japanese, iranians and russians. You can barely see other nationals buying stuff in Dubai shops.
Locals buy when they dont have time to travel to UK or France to buy and they buy daily because they have money, they want to show off their new things on daily basis and they love shopping as there is so little other activities for local women in Dubai.
Iranians buy because they don't have such brands in Iran and like locals, they love to show off their things to their friends and family back in Iran.
Japanese are different though. They love to buy wherever they are. Even if they go to an island in Maldives, they love to buy. But they buy only brands for sure ;).
Russians are the most unknown shoppers in Dubai as we still couldn't figure out whats the real reason they buy in Dubai.

Then why there are many shops in Dubai?

If you walk into Dubai shopping malls, you will be noticed that they are really big, amazing and expensive to build. The builders and owners are local Sheikhs for sure but the retails space rental is highly expensive. For example Mall of the Emirates that privately owned by Majid Al Futtaim, one of the billionaires in UAE, charges retail shop tenants a fixed fee (ex. 1000 DHS per SqFt) and a percentage of their sale (35%-45%). Imagine a big percentage of each one thing that sells in Mall of the Emirates is for Mr. Al Futtaim.
In this case, its really hard to survive and stay at business in Dubai and make money. This is why you can barely find a business owner that has his/her own business and shop in Dubai famous malls. One of the big dark sides of Dubai is money laundering.
There are many people, organizations and government related companies mostly from Iran, Pakistan and India that only open a business in Dubai to clean their money.
They rent a huge retail space, pay a smal portion of their dirty money to the owner and cleaning their money through their business with ease..
As you know, there is no way for a foreign company to open a business in Dubai without having a local sponsor which for bigger companies, the sponsor is higher ranked sheikh in Dubai or UAE. They big fishes in Dubai make their money from what ever they can.
If you do a little research about Dubai and dark truth about it, you will find many dirty names that reside in Dubai and cleaning their money through retail stores and real estate development.

anyway, beside the dark truth about Dubai and expensive shopping, there are plenty of good things you can do and have fun while in Dubai.
For a list of Dubai Shopping Malls, visit dxb.com