Selling a Product in Dubai: Test the Market Before Increasing Volume

Move from the product's appeal to understanding the buyer

The video opens with a familiar claim: I have found a product that will sell in huge quantities if introduced to the market.

Mostafa Nezamparvar shifts the question at this point: who will buy it, and where will the purchase take place? The lesson centres on turning personal confidence in a product into a practical investigation of customers and sales potential.

A seller's belief that a product is the best does not create demand by itself. It must be clear whether customers know it, need it and what alternatives they have in the target market. If customer understanding is incomplete, the sales plan rests on untested assumptions.

The gaz and sohan example: an empty shelf does not necessarily signal a major opportunity

The example does not suggest that such products can never sell in the UAE. The issue is that one buyer's personal experience does not establish the size of market demand. Limited availability or a high price can raise a research question, but cannot alone reveal how many customers are willing to buy.

The educator discusses consumption habits and understanding the audience. A product familiar and appealing to its seller may be unknown to some customers in a new market. Rather than immediately endorsing or rejecting the idea, investigate customers and their purchasing behaviour.

Ask several questions about demand before setting goals

The video's questions are clear:

Demand questions

• Who are the customers?
• Where do they buy?
• Do they know the product?
• Is there demand for it now?
• and which competitors are present in the market?

The answers should produce a more specific definition of the buyer, not a broad phrase such as “everyone”.

The educator recommends neither immediately rejecting nor endorsing a product idea. He suggests gaining market experience through a small-scale process and basing the next decision on that experience. This differs both from unchecked optimism and from dismissing an idea simply because it is unfamiliar.

The session uses food and consumer-product examples, but investigating demand is not limited to one product. The trial should suit the goods and market; the video does not prescribe a single shipment size or entry method for every product.

Define the large goal, but do not confuse it with the starting point

After defining the customer, the lesson turns to goal-setting. Sellers should know the future volume or level of activity they want to reach. The educator illustrates this with different sales targets over a given period. These figures are examples, not recommended targets for every business.

A future goal helps identify infrastructure needs. Large-scale operations may require a warehouse, sales staff, distribution vehicles and a regular supply plan.

These needs should be understood, but that does not mean putting all of them in place before the first market experience.

The important distinction is this: the goal may be large, but the initial team and operations should match the starting scale. The educator suggests implementing the same business model on a smaller scale to gain real experience and clarify the path to higher volumes.

The limited-shipment example: experience the process in practice

This example is not general guidance on importing supplements or choosing an order size. Each product's requirements must be checked before action.

The lesson is that one party's verbal promise or assurance cannot replace a complete, documented experience of the process.

A limited trial must not become a way to disregard regulations or leave procedures incomplete.

The educator emphasises that a small trial should follow the same lawful, formal process intended for the main operation. If the trial is conducted differently from the larger business, not all its lessons will transfer.

Equally, one successful shipment does not mean that entry conditions will remain unchanged or that later shipments will encounter no problems.

Assess the sales response after the goods arrive

Customs clearance or delivery does not end the trial. The video then describes offering the goods to the market to observe customer reactions. For this limited volume, the educator explains that the individual or a small team may handle marketing and introductions; team size should match the scale of the work.

At this stage, assess the actual result of offering the product. Do customers notice it? What feedback do they give? How are introductions and sales progressing? The aim is to gain experience of the activity intended for future expansion before increasing volume and costs.

In this lesson, immediate profit is not the only measure of a successful trial. Experiencing the process and understanding its problems also have value. That does not make costs or losses unimportant; the trial should be sized so that an adverse outcome is manageable.

Turn feedback into improvements for the next round

After the initial trial, the educator emphasises evaluation and improvement. His examples include packaging losses and heat damage. If such a problem occurs, its cause and remedy should be investigated before increasing volume.

The process is therefore not simply “start small, then send more”. Observation and improvement lie between the two scales. The first round's experience should inform the next decision: what needs to change in bringing in the goods, packaging, storage or selling them?

The session describes increasing from a small shipment to larger volumes in stages. The quantities and numbers of vehicles or staff mentioned are examples; the principle is to coordinate operational growth with experience and execution capacity.

Increasing volume without this coordination can reproduce the original uncertainties on a larger scale.

Make the trial's potential loss manageable before starting

An important section near the end concerns the limit of potential loss. The educator says that before starting, a person should know what they stand to lose if the shipment does not sell, is damaged in transit or encounters procedural problems.

He contrasts a limited shipment with suddenly bringing in a large volume whose potential loss may exceed the person's means.

This does not mean expecting certain failure; it means considering adverse outcomes in the decision. A small trial fits the session's reasoning when the cost of possible failure has been assessed in advance, not when a substantial commitment is merely labelled “experimental”.

The educator explicitly states in the video that this method does not eliminate every future problem. New challenges may arise on subsequent shipments. Starting small and growing in stages helps build understanding and limit some initial risk; it does not guarantee loss-free trading.

Summary of the process: customer, goal, trial, improvement and growth

The sequence of testing and growth

1. First define the customer and demand.
2. Then understand the future goal and the infrastructure it requires.
3. Begin at a limited scale with a suitably sized team, assess the process and market response, and use the results in the next decision.

This sequence summarises the lesson's topics.

About this talk

This article is an edited, thematic adaptation of Mostafa Nezamparvar's video “Trade Lessons 003: How to Sell Your Product in Dubai?”, published on 10 December 2024 and embedded on this page. It is based on automatic Persian captions and is not a word-for-word transcript.

The gaz and sohan example and the vitamin C shipment example come from the video itself. This text makes no claim about current demand for those products or their import approvals. Illustrative figures have not been turned into operating instructions, and statements suggesting the complete elimination of risk have been omitted.