Hybrid shopping to stay: LuLu director

Shopping experience in Qatar and other countries is expected to become hybrid as online shopping and delivery started slowing down, LuLu Group International director Dr Mohamed Althaf has said. “If you look at all the online (shopping) and delivery worldwide that pressure has gone now and kind of slowly easing up and becoming hybrid,” he told reporters at the recently held ‘Thai Halal Products In-store Promotion in Qatar’.He said that over the past several years online shopping and delivery for food and retail in some countries only hit 5 to 6% increase – the highest so far – since it usually remains well below 5%. According to Dr Althaf, it was only during the Covid-19 pandemic that it surged up to 10% and in some cases, 12% while “many other things like textile went up to 20% in some other countries”.During the onslaught of Covid-19 and the imposition of certain restrictions last year, a number of leading hypermarkets in Qatar increased their capacity for home deliveries at various locations to serve customers who prefer to shop online. It is learnt that many residents in Qatar still prefer to visit the hypermarkets and supermarkets to buy food and other perishable items such as fruits and vegetables, as well as meat and seafood.“When going to a store you realise there are so many other things that you need to stock," the LuLu official said. “The other thing is that the number of shops are increasing, people are also assured with the measures the government has taken here, for example, the vaccination rate is very high, almost everyone, 100% of the people who work for food including LuLu – eligible people – are all vaccinated and tested regularly, social distancing is being done,” Dr Althaf said.Qatar being a safe country with all the Covid-19 protocols in place such as mandatory wearing of facemasks and showing of a green code Ehteraz app, he added that the level of shopping confidence is also continuously growing.Four new LuLu stores are scheduled to open in Qatar this year and The Pearl-Qatar store by the first quarter of next year, LuLu Group International director Dr Mohamed Althaf announced..