Users can now contact Darrbers without the need to add items through Darrb.com!

The new feature called “Contact Now”, allows users to get the contact number of their selected/prefered Darrber by clicking on the “Contact Now” button next to his name in the Darrbers page.

By answering 3 basic questions, you will get the contact number of the Darrber immidiately. As a reference, a notification email will be sent to the Darrber with the details of your request.

This feature gives users the flexibility to contact the Darrber they want to deal with directely without the need to add any item.

The Auction based requests will still be available, which will help provide users with a competitive price/duration for their delivery.

More features are on the way and will be announced accordingly.

There is a new rule in Dubai. One Villa, One Family!

Many families where trying to save some cash by sharing the same villa they live in with other families and split the rent between them. Many villas in different areas within Dubai got packed with a huge number of people that split the rent. This is not legal any more, although there is no similar rule for sharing apartments.

This led many families to move houses from one area to another, many went to different cities because of budget issues, which increased the demand on packing and relocating services.

Darrbers can make use of this even outside Darrb.com, as many people will require their services.

Companies started registering as Darrbers to offer their delivery services through Darrb.com.

We have mary374 who has a a freight company in Greece and Smart Move that offer door to door moving, packing and relocation services in the UAE.

I  believe this is a good move as people can use their services if they wish to deal with companies at some level.

We have added a new feature on eMapia that allows visitors to view the site in Full Screen mode.

This feature gives the visitor the ability to zoom by scrolling in and out. It also provides a summary display of every item available by only pointing the cursor on the selected item.

Using the Full Screen mode, visitors can click on Show Items link available in the header to be able to see all items within the current zoom level through their thumbnails, which allows visitors to filter the items in a very convenient way.

Let us know what you think about the new features!

More on eMapia and its relation to Darrb.com can be found here.

1000ideas.ru is a Russian website that recently reviewed Darrb.com.

I don’t understand Russain, but thanks to Google’s translation service that allowed me to understand what the review was about.

The following are captions of the tranlsations, the first is from Russain to Arabic and the Second is from Russain to English:

Russian to Arabic:

Russian to English:

What is really interesting is that the “Darrber” is called “Darrbarov” in Russian! Thanks to 1000ideas.ru for the coverage and the very interesting information.

It important to concentrate on the value of creating teams to cover a wider area than what a single Darrber can cover.

We encourage darrbers to look for people that share the same interest (even if they don’t have internet access) and form a structured team to seriously cover areas around them. After creating the team, the Darrber might want to register with his new Team name and write more details about him and his friends and their capabilities providing pictures and other details that encourage people to use their services. Knowing the team’s capabilities will defenitly increase the chances of getting more business as people can trust them and relax that their items are in safe hands.

Let us know if you need any help in creating such teams, we will more than happy to advise or help in editing your profile page to suite this need. The least we can do is to announce the establishment of such teams here in the blog!

We have received a number of emails of people showing interest in becoming Darrders in their countries and wanting to become”very active” in certain areas.

That’s very good news! we actually encourage this and have previously talked about becoming International Darrbers.

Its very important to make it clear that no one requires our approval to cover parts or all of his country, its absolutely open to everyone to become a Darrber and cover whatever areas he desires. People will easily find you through search and can use your services whenever they need it.

Here is how to become a Darrber and here is how to send items through Darrb.com.

The messaging system had a bug that gives an error when leaving a message in the items page. Although the message is added, the error was confusing and gave an indicator that something was wrong and it wasn’t known whether the message was really added or not.

The bug is now fixed. We will continue to fix other bugs as they appear, and please let us know if you find anything.

احدى عمليات التوصيل الناجحة مؤخراً كانت عن طريق الدربر alainpi. العملية كانت عبارة عن توصيل لوحتين من دبي الى ابوظبي (المسافة تقارب 170 كيلومتر) بتكلفة تساوي 70 درهم اي ما يقارب 20 دولار امريكي.

لمعرفتنا بالمرسل, علمنا انه تم أخذ اللوحتين يوم الخميس الماضي و تم توصيلها الى ابوظبي صباح السبت.

هناك 3 نقاط تستدعي الكتابة عن هذه العملية:

النقطة الاولى: قيمة اللوحتين تقارب ال3000 درهم او تقريباً 800 دولار, و قد تمت عملية التوصيل بنجاح دون خوف او شك في الدربر الذي يعتبر شخص غريب بالنسبة للمرسل.

النقطة الثانية: تكلفة الارسال تعتبر منافسة للغاية و ارخص من اي شركة توصيل!

بعد الاتصال بشركة DHL  تم تعريف التكلفة ب373 درهم اي 100 دولار تقريباً و 132 درهم اي 36 دولار للتوصيل عن طريق شركة فدكس. اما شركة ارمكس فلم تعط سعراً و طلبت اخذ اللوحات لقياسها في مركز العمليات لمعرفة السعر, و هذا طبعاً امر غير عملي بتاتاً.

النقطة الثالثة: عملية التوصيل استغرقت يوم عمل واحد, و هي نفس السرعة التي ستستغرقها شركات التوصيل الاخرى.

الفرق في تكلفة التوصيل يرجع لما يسمى بالVolumetric Weight  و هو الوزن الذي يعتمد على الحجم. حيث ان طول اللوحات عبارة عن متر و العرض 20 سنتيمر و الارتفاع نصف متر يعطي ما يساوي 34 كيلوجراماً من الوزن و هي ما تقيسه شركات التوصيل وزناً لاي بضاعة تحمل هذه الابعاد بغض النظر عن وزنها الحقيقي الذي قد يكون كيلوجرام واحد فقط!

اما بالنسبة للدربر alainpi فلم يهمه كل هذا! فهو يمر في هذه المناطق بشكل مستمر و لن يضره تحميل ما يمكن تحميله في سيارته اذا كانت التكلفة بالنسبة له مناسبة بدون هذه الحسابات!

One of the recent successful deliveries through Darrb.com was done by alainpi. The delivery was about sending 2 paintings from Dubai to Abudhabi (~170 km) and the agreed price was AED 70 (~$20).

By knowing the sender,  we came to know that the paintings were taken last Thursday and was delivered on Saturday morning to its destination.

Three main points for mentioning this delivery are:

1. The paintings were worth around AED 3000 (~$800), and it was successfully delivered without fear or any trust issues from the Darrber who was a total stranger.

2. The delivery price was very competitive! we did some search and found that it would cost AED 373 (~$100) to send it through DHL and AED 132 (~$ 36) to send it through FedEx! Aramex didn’t quote for a price and asked to take the package to their center and  physically measure the dimensions before giving prices, which is practically annoying!

3. They were delivered within 1 working day. The same speed that any other courier would take.

The price difference is based on something called “Volumetric Weight“, which they calculate by knowing the dimensions of the package (in this case it was 1 meter by 0.5 meter by 0.2 meters).

The Volumetric weight given by DHL was 34 kg, which means that it would cost the same if you send something that has the dimension of 1 meter by 0.5 meter by 0.2 meter, no matter what it weighs as far as its less than 34kg. FedEx gave a volumetric weight of 17 kg, Aramex didn’t even give a volumetric weight.

Our Darrber doesn’t care about volumetric weights! he was already going to the same route and he didn’t mind delivering something that can fit in his car!

Thats the difference between Darrbers and normal courier services:)