Al Adil Store - Survivor in the age of Internet

My mom usually does her grocery shopping at the Al Adil store. Out of curiosity I accompanied her last week to the shop to observe the customer profile and category of product offered at the store.

A quick summary of the store :

In 1984, Adil Store was opened in order to cater to the needs of the Indian house wife residing in Dubai. Clients from far off places like Abu-Dhabi, Sharjah, Al Ain, Fujairah use to come to the Bur-Dubai supermarket. Encouraged by this tremendous response, two more Branches were opened - One in Abu-Dhabi and the other in Sharjah.

The store is driven by goods and services. This store is an answer to all the Indian cravings of quality Indian pulses, Spices, Dals, Beans, Lentils, Peas, Rice, Wheat Groceries, Pickles, Branded and miscellaneous Non- food Items. Over the years the customer base has widened from just house wives to prestigious 5 Star Hotels- Like Hilton, Sheraton Group to reputed catering companies Like- Emirates Abela, Intercat, Albert Abela & Co to Dubai Duty Free

Due to the large population of Indians in Dubai, there is a lot of word-of-mouth advertising of this store through customers who frequent the store. The store also has a dedicated website – which however, needs some revisions and which needs to be kept up-to-date. The management also claims to have enlarged and sustained a wide category of customers without any break for the last 15 years.

The various products at Al Adil are exported in bulk from India, by Tulaja Exports to a warehouse in Al Quoz, where the bulk items are repacked into packs of 50gms to 50 kgs, depending on the expected demand of the various products. This is the stage where the Dirham price is finalised and the various products dispatched to each of the outlets.

Price is fixed and there is no scope for bargaining in this ‘fixed’ price store. But the philosophy of the owners is that customers wouldn’t mind paying few dirhams more (than the rupee price) for a brand / product that gives them a taste of home. – It seems that their philosophy has turned out to be a highly profitable service model.

I was startled to discover how this mini chain store has become part of the daily Indian house hold in UAE. Almost every Indian housewife is aware of this brand and has shopped at least once in their life time in Dubai.

Strange but true! In this Internet age these stores are survivors having bare minimum presence on the Internet but managing to attract customers. I couldn’t find a single picture of the shop on the Internet, but numerous interviews of the store owner Dhananjay Datar. Well done Mr. Datar to get the business going.