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11 Lebanese Online Shopping Websites To Help You Do Your Christmas Shopping

By on December 18, 2018 in Shopping

With Christmas only few days away, and knowing how jammed the roads and mall tend to get over this week, I personally avoid to do any shopping during this period. So if you also hate spending several hours on a trip to the mall to get a single item, here are 11 of my favorite online shopping websites in Lebanon who are known for their consistent service and can definitely save you time and effort if you have been postponing your holiday shopping.

JouéClub

Several big toy stores have recently launched in Beirut but Joue Club remains my favorite. Their website has all their popular brands an they offer free delivery for orders above 150,000L.L.

Antaki Group

Antaki is a distributor for several high end brands like DJI, Parrot, Polaroid, Dyson, Yamaha, Bose and many others. They have a lot of interesting and cool gadgets to choose from.

Exotica

I know there are many flower delivery websites in Lebanon, but when it’s Christmas you better not take risk and simply go with the best in the field.

Codeone

This website is specialized in home and giftware items. Their collection is always carefully selected

HiCart

This website has a wide variety of products from electronics to mobiles, home appliances, toys, beauty stuff, and even books.

209 Lebanese Wine

This website offers wines from over 45 Lebanese wineries and delivers them straight to your door, hassle-free. What I love about the website is that it makes your choice easier by telling you what kind of food goes best with each bottle. They offer free delivery for orders over $70.

Feel22

This is your go to website for everything makeup and perfume! They have a lot of brands and cater mainly to women but also have a dedicated section for men’s products.

Sarah’s Bag

Sarah’s Bag is a Lebanese fashion house that creates luxury hand-crafted bags and accessories with original designs that I think would be pretty cool as a Christmas gift.

GS

All the brands you love from GS online! They offer free express delivery for orders above $66.

Como Store

Como is a multi brand concept clothing store. I know from my friends that they have a good customer service and they offer free delivery.

Librairie Antoine Online

For some, a book is always a good idea as a gift, and we all know Antoine is the leading bookstore in Lebanon.

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Lebanese TV Stations and Copyright Basics

By on September 27, 2016 in Television

metel-el-amar-600

Most Lebanese TV stations have been uploading their content to YouTube for a while now, and I’m personally glad they do because I rarely manage to watch programs on time. My wife and I usually put my little kid to sleep and then start watching our favorite shows starting 8:30 or 9:00PM, including anything interesting we might have missed on a Lebanese station thanks to YouTube.

However, I’ve been lately noticing that those in charge or maintaining the YouTube channels are sometimes uploading every show the stations are airing regardless whether it was produced by them or not. For instance while it is normal for LBCI to upload their news reports or Nharkom Saiid for example, I don’t think it’s ok for them to upload a series they bought from some production company because they don’t have the right to redistribute it.

Yesterday for example I was going through MTV Lebanon videos and noticed that they have every single episode of “Metel El Amar” series on their YouTube channel even though it was produced by Marwa Group (link). On the other hand, LBCI have episodes of “Shaware’ Al Zell” (produced by Phoenix International) on their channel.

I know there’s no way to compare but imagine some European TV channel uploading Game of Thrones episodes the minutes they finish airing them, that would piss HBO off big time… And in case you’re wondering, I personally don’t respect copyright laws as I get most of my movies and series from torrent websites, but I was just thinking that TV stations should be more responsible about such things.

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Shopping & Shipping from the US made easy

By on September 22, 2014 in Lebanon

amazon

So you decided to spend your hard-earned money on a gadget you’ve been eyeballing for a while, but you noticed that it costs a fortune less in the United States. Well, shopping and shipping from the US has never been easier specially with some major US retailers (see Amazon) accepting non-US credit cards. I’ll be mainly focusing on Amazon since it is where you will find the cheapest prices online.

In order to make a purchase on amazon you will need the following:

  • An Amazon account.
  • A US suite address (an address in the US where your goods will be shipped; explained later on)
  • A credit/internet card.

How it works?

In order to ship from Amazon or other online US retailers to Lebanon, you will first need to have a US address that your goods will ship to. This address will be given to you by the shipping provider you will choose. That being said, There are many providers to choose from, the most widely known being Aramex’s shop and ship service, and DHL’s borderlinx service. I personally use borderlinx and I am satisfied with their service so far. I advise that you compare both offerings (and others) and decide which suits your needs best.

Next step is to add your credit card information as well as your billing and shipping addresses to your Amazon account. To avoid any confusion i’ll explain what these addresses exactly stand for:
Your billing address is the address associated with your credit/internet card. This is provided by your bank.
Your shipping address is the US address (suite address) that is provided by your shipping provider.

And that’s about it. You are now ready for your first purchase. You will be notified by email once your items have shipped from Amazon to your US address. You will also be provided with a tracking id so you can continuously check on the delivery process. Once the items have reached your US address, you will be notified of that as well by your shipping provider. Once shipped from the US, expect your items delivered to your doorstep in 1 business week max. You will receive 2 invoices: one from customs, the other from your shipping provider. Mabrouk!

Since the main objective of online shopping is to pay less, here are some tips to optimize your savings:

  1. Look for the cheapest seller.
  2. Make sure your item is eligible for free shipping (mentioned next to the item price).
  3. Choose “standard shipping” on checkout (all the items I have bought using “standard shipping” got delivered to my US address in 4 days tops which is totally acceptable in my opinion).
  4. No matter which provider you are shipping with, always consolidate your packages in order to PAY LESS shipping fees (benefits of consolidating packages explained here).
  5. Before proceeding with your purchase, check the Lebanese customs tariffs in order to know the customs fees applied on the type of product you are buying (note that you pay 0% custom fees on laptops and computer parts!)

Some useful links:

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Lebanon can now shop online

By on August 9, 2011 in Lebanon

Lebanon finally got itself a real online shopping website! Mizalla.com

Mizalla, who launched their service just today, are promising to be an online mall where business owners can setup their virtual store to sell their goods online (check their “Businesses” page), which means the range of available items (mainly electronics) is expected to expand.

I’m still not sure how do their prices compare to the market but I’ll make sure to let you know about it. Meanwhile do check their website, it’s really worth a shot.

Update:

I compared prices between Mizalla and Khoury Home, and they were both selling TV’s and surround systems at the same price.

However, you can get some computer accessories like external hard drives and SD card for a cheaper price at  PCandParts.com. For example a Seagate 1TB external hard drive is selling for $132 at Mizalla, while it sells for $112.2 at PC and Parts ($102+vat).

Still when it came to digital cameras, PC and Parts turned to be a bit more expensive.

So prices are very close to what’s available in the market.

Update 2:

It’s better to buy SD memory cards from PC and Parts. 16GB cards class 4 are priced at $41.8 from PC and Parts while class 2 16GB cards are priced at $37.5 from Mizalla. Note that class 4 cards are twice as fast as class 2.

I’ll stop the comparisons as I guess you now have an idea.

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Virgin ticketing box office ridiculous internet charges

By on June 9, 2011 in Lebanon

Have you noticed that Virgin’s ticketing box office imposes a 3.5%  as “internet charges” on your total payment for tickets purchased through their website?

The main advantage of online purchasing is that people usually get deals at a lower price in the comfort of their home. Virgin probably didn’t get that right. Next time I have to make a ticket purchase, I’ll just go to one of their branches instead of using their website.

Thanks @sam_lb

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