John Sime, Emirates Manager Duty Free Sales, said: We are delighted to receive this award; it is a great vote of confidence for our duty free programme, particularly as it has been awarded by our colleagues in the duty free industry. This represents a vote of confidence in our cabin crew for promoting our service on board and the Duty Free Services team at Emirates.
A varied product range, innovative marketing, and meeting passenger expectations have become the hallmark of Emirates onboard duty free sales. Passengers can choose from 170 duty free items, at prices to suit all budgets. Three times each year, around 25% of the on board assortment is changed.
Many items, such as the Roberto Paggio men`s watch have been developed exclusively for Emirates. Each product has to earn its place on the duty free trolleys. If passengers don`t like something, we drop it, said Mr Sime.
To cater to the need of many Asian passengers for gift items a larger than usual range of fragrances is offered on board – around 50. These account for a large percentage of our sales because they meet a need for gift items; but if I were based in Europe I would probably put only about a dozen perfumes on board, said Mr Sime.
Anticipating passenger preferences can lead the airline`s duty free sales team to pick some surprising winners. One of the best-selling items on board is the C Pen 600C from C Pen Technologies of Sweden, an electronic wizard that can scan and translate 2,000 A4 pages of text which can be downloaded on to a PC. At Dhs950 it is not among the cheapest, but sales have been so brisk that it has been taken up by other airlines. Commented Mr Sime: In keeping with the rest of the company, we like to set a few trends.
Theodore is the Co-Founder and Managing Editor of TravelDailyNews Media Network; his responsibilities include business development and planning for TravelDailyNews long-term opportunities.
