Gulf Depot: Imported building material industry free from fraud

Ihab Tabbara, director general of Gulf Depot, one of the major building material retail outlet stores across the GCC countries and the Middle East region, confirmed that the imported building material market is free from all kinds of fraud in Saudi Arabia due to stringent Customs laws and regulations.
Cases of fraud in imported building material are also insignificant in the Kingdom due to the ongoing campaigns and inspections, which are regularly carried out by the Saudi Customs Department at the border areas all around the year. The Customs department lays a lot of emphasis on monitoring all the products that enter the boundaries of Saudi Arabia, which is one of the main things that contribute to its foolproof system to check frauds and cheating. However, this advantage also contributes to an unusual delay in the delivery of goods, which is detrimental to both the consumers and importers.
Tabbara pointed out that the size of the building material market is around $ 1 billion, although it still has the capacity to accommodate more manufacturers and retailers due to strong backing of government to boost investments in the public and private sectors. He also said that the price of majority of building materials is rising continuously yet the price of some goods has remained stable.
He noted that the size of the building material market, particularly retail is witnessing an annual growth of 15 percent since 2002. In the past few years, many local building materials factories appeared in the market as a result of its growth and expansion, which generated a healthy competition within this sector. "With heightened competition and strategy to attract a larger segment of the market, we intensified our endeavors to provide unique and quality services, such as online shopping and basic training to our clients," he added.
Under online shopping, Tabbara said: "We offer highly customized online shopping experience to our consumers, which lets them place an exact order of the product they need. They can choose the category, class, type, quantity and size, that best describes their product requirement and place an order instantly. Once an online order is submitted, we contact the consumer and deliver the goods at the specified place within the shortest possible time."
He added that when it comes to retail sector, price becomes more important than quality. "This is important to us because our target customers are end-users and small subcontractors. This by no means implies that the quality is not crucial to the consumers. Of course, they look into the quality of the products but they also give high priority to the price of building products," Tabbara said and remarked that the building material market is one of the main revenue-generating tributaries of the rapidly expanding construction industry and "this positive economic trajectory is profitable not just for the industry but for our country as well."
Taking about the current scenario, Tabbara expressed his desire to increase the awareness of utilities of building materials among Saudi consumers who lack this knowledge. He said that Gulf Depot had developed a special service for its Saudi consumers whereby "our dedicated training center staff educates those who lack the knowledge about building materials." He explained: "We strive to educate the consumers regarding the best methods of using the product they buy and render professional guidance about the amount of material they should buy so that no surplus amount goes waste or is returned. This allows inexperienced consumers to start off with a significantly more mature mindset thereby avoiding any extra costs.
Tabbara said the company had organized a workshop to train its consumers to enable them to work on their own without taking anyone's help or assistance or hiring workers, who might in turn work in a non-professional way leading to wastage of building materials, time and money. As of now, the company has successfully organized 38 workshops, including 31 in the UK and 7 in Lebanon, Egypt, Syria and the UAE.
Gulf Depot, founded in 2002, is one of the companies coming under the umbrella of the Roots Group Arabia. The company caters to the day-to-day building material requirements of the industry through its 42 operating outlets across Saudi Arabia, and the rest of the GCC-Middle East region. The company sells a number of building material products, including paint products, construction chemicals, waterproofing products, plasterboard partitions, suspended ceilings, gypsum boards and metal works.