JEDDAH, 8 January 2005 — The landmark event on Thursday night when Saudi writer and poet Nimah Ismail Nawwab signed copies of her new book of poems “The Unfurling” at its launch has further pushed the stock of Jarir Bookstore among book lovers, students and academics.
“The event is the first ever anywhere in Saudi Arabia,” Musaab Banjer, section manager at the superstore on Sari Street told Arab News. “The store’s journey from its first outlet in Riyadh 30 years ago is now a success story with a chain of 17 branches dotting the Kingdom’s major cities and elsewhere in the Gulf,” he said.
Banjer, who with another section manager Fahad Allahim, supervised the event, said it was common practice in the West and elsewhere for authors to sign copies of their new books for the buyers. “This serves as a two-way traffic for both. The author benefits by personally interacting with book buyers and selling more copies, and the store benefits from the turnout of visitors and their word of mouth in the community. In fact, such events are known to attract even those who visit the store rarely.
The chain has four stores in Riyadh and four others in Jeddah, aside from one each in Makkah, Alkhobar, Dammam, Buraidah and Al-Hassa. In the Gulf, it has a store in Kuwait with one more to open soon, and one each in Doha and Abu Dhabi.
“Jarir distinguishes itself as a bookstore that has no parallel in the Middle East. There are other bookstores but they don’t come anywhere near Jarir for several reasons,” he said.
The main reason, according to him, is Jarir Bookstore has a diverse range of products with its showroom area ranging from 10,000 sq ft to 45,000 sq ft. It has emerged as a market leader in information technology (IT) products, Arabic and English books, arts and engineering products, office supplies, hobbies and crafts. Each superstore carries over 100,000 carefully chosen items.
“Jarir is also now an exclusive or major distributor for a number of supplies of top brands,” he added. Toshiba, Acer, HP, Fujitsu Siemens, IBM, Siemens, Microsoft, Canon, Lexmark, Elba, Faber-Castell, Hunt, Learning Company, Random House, Electronic Arts and McAfee are among them.
Despite its strength of over 300 fulltime employees and a trained 400-strong sales team, Jarir has integrated and automated operations.
In fact, Pan-Arab Research Center representing GALLUP International in the Kingdom rates Jarir Bookstore as the No. 1 destination in the Kingdom.
Jarir Bookstore’s turnover has been increasing year after year. Aside from books, some of the major products that have been moving fast are PCs and peripherals, computer supplies and accessories, multimedia and software, and items like digital cameras and MP3 players.
One of its marketing techniques is to enable companies to open a corporate account that eliminates third party commissions and offers them attractions like special prices, credit facilities, and free and timely delivery.
Jarir Bookstore’s main warehouse has an area of 360,000 sq ft and is equipped with a state-of-the-art distribution system to facilitate accurate and speedy receiving, storing, retrieving and delivery of goods to end users and showrooms.
“More significantly, our secured price means no more quotations. This saves you and your employees time and effort wasted in daily quotation request and price analysis,” a bookstore executive said.
