Category: Shopping

I’m a huge fan of Victorinox Swiss army knives and if I wasn’t so clumsy with sharp objects I would probably have a nice huge collection at home. Thing is I have three Swiss army knives and have managed to cut myself accidentally with all three (one of them pretty deep) so I’ve kinda kept my distance from them.

But that doesn’t mean I can’t admire the knives. They have some really great looking ones with my favorite being the bright emergency yellow RescueTool which I’ve had my eye on for a while now. Majority of people don’t know this but we have a pretty good Victorinox dealer here in Kuwait. The shop isn’t in the best location and the interior design is pretty crap (check photos below) but they do have a pretty huge collection.

The shop is called Shalimar Stores and they’re located in the ground floor of the mall right behind Johnny Rockets Salhiya. Prices of knives vary with the majority falling in between KD5 to KD15. They also carry Victorinox scissors, bags and watches as well. Their phone number is 22451270

I was at Sultan last night when I spotted a new organic corner. What grabbed my attention was the fact they got some new brands including a brand of tea called Clipper which have pretty cool packing you can see below.

I also spotted the Red Bull bottles pictured below in the fridge which reminded me of the Thai Red Bull’s.

I passed by the new Lulu Hypermarket that opened up recently. The place is huge and I found a ton of stuff that I hadn’t seen before. I do all my shopping at Sultan Center since they have a lot of imported US and UK products but I will probably be adding Lulu to the list now. This is just an example of what I found at the first fridge once I walked in: Diet Coke “caffeine free”, Diet Coke with lemon, Diet Coke with cherry, Fanta Zero orange and Fanta Zero lemon, Sprite Zero, and Dr Pepper Zero. They also had a whole variety of Tropicana juices I hadn’t seen before (and for a reasonable KD1.600) and even the UK brand Innocent. I didn’t take any pictures after that fridge since there were “No Photography” signs everywhere (not sure why). I did manage to snap a picture of a strange fruit I found, hadn’t seen one like it before (pictured at bottom of post).

To get to Lulu you take the 40th and then exit on the 208 heading towards the Wataniya Airways airport. It’s located on the main road so you won’t miss it. Check out some more pictures below.

The trendy shop number 4 which is located in the Shuwaikh industrial area recently launched an online shop (I think it’s recent at least) and it’s not too bad. The site is simple and fast and they have a sale now. I just wish they had a larger Lifestyle section with more stuff. Currently they just have the Wallpaper* City Guides. Here is the [Link]

via mashmoom

Back in 2006 I got introduced to Sumajin’s Smartwraps that did an amazing job of tidying up my headphone wires. Since then though I’ve somehow managed to lose all my Smartwraps. Instead of ordering them again from Amazon I was wondering if 5 years later someone in Kuwait now sells these. Does anyone know if I can find Smartwraps in Kuwait?

The list of the hottest emerging markets for retail just got released and for the first time ever Kuwait made it onto the list but not only that, Kuwait somehow managed to rank the second hottest market place in the world for retail! China is in first place as expected, India in third and Kuwait squeezed in between the two. This probably has to do with Alshaya being based in Kuwait and bringing in and opening all these foreign brands. I’m still waiting for some kind of news on Shake Shack..

“Kuwait is an attractive opportunity,” said Deepa Neary, a retail industry consultant at A.T. Kearney. She cited the country’s location in the Middle East, which is quickly becoming an exciting region for retailers, and its highly concentrated urban population, which helps make the market more accessible for retailers.

According to Neary, Kuwait can serve as an entry point into the Middle East.

Here is the top 10 list:
1- China
2- Kuwait
3- India
4- Saudi Arabia
5- Brazil
6- Chile
7- United Arab Emirates
8- Uruguay
9- Peru
10- Russia

You can read the article by following this [Link]

Thanks Zoogi

I found this local website by mistake and I’m actually impressed. Not at the design or anything like that but on the items that are listed… luxury watches! There seems to be a good range but I am struggling to find out whats used, whats new, whats from the local dealers and what’s gray market. I am guessing the Rolex Deep Sea for example is used since it’s listed for KD2,250 while it retails for KD3,250 locally before discount. They have the Audemars Piguet Offshore Diver listed for KD4,250 but it retails for KD4,500 at the dealer although they’re out of stock. The Panerai section is beautiful, they’ve got my favorite which is the very limited PAM 26. The Hublot section… lets not even go there. Basically I would have to agree with their tag line, it has to be Kuwait’s premier luxury site since I am not aware of any other one. [Link]

Back in 2006 I posted about the Philips BodyGroom that had just been released. It became super popular and every guy I know ended up getting one. I personally bought two of them, a 110v first followed by a 220v version. Five years later Philip have gone and completely redesigned the shaver which I ended up ordering from Amazon while I was in New York last month.

The new shaver looks better, comes with a prettier stand and most importantly works better. First of all you no longer need to attach various sized comb attachments to the trimmer since with the new design the trimmer is adjustable. Secondly the shaving head now pivots in 3D which results in a more “comfortable” shave. I am not going to go into a lot of details since you can get all the info from the Philips shaveeverywhere.com website. I will say this though, the new BodyGroom performs a lot better than the older one.

You can order it from Amazon since I haven’t found it locally yet. The price is around KD20 and this new BodyGroom is multi-voltage which means its 110-240v. Here is the link to the shaver on Amazon [Link]

The other day I linked to a review of SeaBob which costs around KD4,000. Obviously its not something everyone can afford but there is an alternative… the SeaScooter. Costs around KD80 at Fantasy World and does the same thing although a lot lot slower and a lot less cooler. But, it’s also a lot more cheaper.

Yesterday a reader emailed me telling me that the Electrozan branch in Salmiya got shut down by the ministry. So I emailed my Electrozan contact to find out what happened and it turned out to be a license issue. Now the cool thing is that today they put up stickers on the door which you can see above.

The first message apologizes to the customers for being closed and explains why. The second message tells customers that if they take a picture of the door with the message on it and show it to any employee at another one of their branches they get a 5% discount.

I thought that was pretty cool since usually when shops get closed by the ministry no one knows why and rumors get spread. In this case they actually tell everyone why and offer a nice little discount in return.

I guess the gelatin issue isn’t really an issue.

Over the weekend I found out about a cool real estate website called Masahati that actually works pretty well. There are a ton of websites dealing with real estate in Kuwait but the majority are either outdated, don’t work right or just too complicated to use. Masahati, although doesn’t contain a lot of apartments right now is actually very enjoyable and fun to use.

There are a variety of ways to use the site but I like using it with the map of Kuwait. You scroll around on the map and when there is an apartment for rent it shows up as a 3D icon which you can click and get more info. The search can be customizable and if you don’t like the map view you can flip through available apartments in a list view, thumbnails view or even a photo flow. Hopefully with more exposure they can get more popular and add more apartments. Check out the website [Here]

Update: Here is a link to their facebook group [Link]

Just got hold of an iPad from X-Cite to review and check out. It just arrived from the States and it’s one of the first iPads in Kuwait. So far my first impression is that the iPad looks even cooler than the pictures, it’s really an incredible device I love it, the screen is amazing, better than the screen of my MacBook which I’m currently typing on. X-Cite just got a small batch of iPads today and they’re on display at their Avenues X-Cite branch so you can go and try them out.

I’m going to play around with my review unit for a bit more and post some more details later today. I’m curious to see if I’ll be able to buy books from the iTunes store.

X-Cite are getting the 16GB iPad with WiFi and the price is KD299. If you want to pre-order an iPad you need to leave a KD50 deposit and you can only book one unit since quantities are limited. It’s first come first served. You can only pre-order the iPad from the Avenues X-Cite branch starting at 7PM today. The earlier you book, the higher the chance you get your iPad in one of their next shipments. As an added bonus, if you mention my blog when booking you will get a free flash drive. If you want to play with an iPad pass by the Avenues X-Cite branch after 7PM today since that’s when they will go on display.

I was at Ace Hardware picking up a clog remover (my 4th bottle and I’ve still got a clog) when I noticed they’ve completely restocked. Around once or twice a year Ace Hardware gets their big shipment and it seems a new one arrived. All the shelves are packed with stuff including the pet section. The picture above is of all the doggie treats. The hardware section and car section have also been restocked. Lots of cool stuff.

I was at Virgin today and noticed they’re selling metal lunch boxes. These aren’t the orignal Thermos metal lunch boxes from the 80’s but they’re pretty close. They’re selling for around KD3.5.