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Union Coop offers drive-thru shopping experience in Dubai

Dubai - The new service offers more than 130 basic food and non-food products.

Union Coop, the largest consumer cooperative in the UAE, launched a new drive-thru shopping service that allows consumers to shop from their vehicles, at Mirdif branch in Etihad Mall. It is the first-of-its-kind shopping service in the Middle East.

Khalid Humaid Bin Diban Al Falasi, CEO of Union Coop, said: "Union Coop decided to implement this exceptional and new idea that contributes to increasing options for shopping methods for the community members and consumers. We offer tradition shopping service in the showrooms, the shopper valet service, online shopping in addition to shopping from the vehicle in Mirdif branch." The new service offers more than 130 basic food and non-food products.

Explaining the shopping mechanism, Al Falasi pointed out: "The consumer, in his private car, enters the designated area in the parking of Etihad Mall, and is served by service staff without the need to get out of his vehicle. Payments can be made in various ways such as cash, debit / credit cards and Al Afdhal card." Consumers can use their Tamayaz card to earn and redeem loyalty points as well, in addition to adding the shareholder numbers to the purchases.

The working hours of the drive-thru shopping is the same as that of the Mirdif branch.

Outlet to open in UAQ next year

Union Coop will open an outlet in Umm Al Quwain's Al Salamah Area 3 next year, with around seven per cent of the work on the project already complete, said a Press statement.
Khalid Al Falasi said: "The preliminary and excavation works for project has already been completed. We expect that as per the 'Project timeline', constructions of the building structure will be completed by coming December, which means the implementation of the project will be completed by May 2021." 
He said: "By changing the project contractor, we saved Dh6 million from the total cost of construction, while maintaining the same standard specifications. This comes in order to facilitate the progress of administrative operations, which ultimately will reflect positively on the shareholders and contribute to optimizing the financial and technical resources, as the project cost is` reduced from Dh52 million to Dh46 million, while ensuring the best designs, specifications and international standards and work as per the cutting-edge technologies."
The project consists of a basement, ground floor and first and second floors with a total build-up area of 201,707 sqft. The centre includes an Umm Al Quwain hypermarket with an area of 35,732 sqft with 15 shops and 70 residential apartments, in addition to 233 parking lots distributed on the basement, ground floors and outside the building.

waheedabbas@khaleejtimes.com