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Gear for the desert, the sea and the camp. Wholesale and retail. - Souq Waqif, Falcon Souq, Doha, Qatar

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Authorised agencies: 13 official agencies and 48 brands under one roof

Al Huwaila holds 13 official agencies straight from the maker, and 48 brands in all on the shelves. An agency is not a stamp on a certificate hanging on the wall: it means the piece came into Qatar by one known road, carrying an undertaking on spare parts and service after the sale. The rest of the brands we bring in as ordinary imports and they are sold on that basis, with nothing blurred.

What is the difference between an authorised agent and a seller who imports?

An authorised agent has a written agreement with the factory, and the factory knows who sells in its name in Qatar. A seller who imports buys a shipment from a distributor or on the open market, and his part is finished the moment he hands you the bag. If something goes wrong with the piece two months later, the agent has somebody to go back to and the importer has nobody.

And here is the difference a falconer feels on the day he needs it: the agent can get you the one missing part on its own, a charger head, a battery in a particular size, a clip, a knife sheath, a sharpening stone to replace the one that broke. Without an agent, when the shipment runs out the whole model runs out with it.

What does an agency guarantee you in practice?

  • A genuine piece to the same specification written on the box, not a copy that looks right and is something else inside.
  • A steady supply of spares and accessories: batteries, chargers, carrying straps, sheaths, sharpening stones.
  • Service after the sale: the shop has somebody at the factory it can call if a manufacturing fault appears.
  • New releases arrive with the agent's shipment, instead of your waiting a year for them to find their way round the market.

And what an agency does not cover: breaking a blade on bone, or soaking a flashlight in salt water and leaving it until morning. Misuse is one thing and a manufacturing fault is another, and the factory knows the difference before anybody else.

How do I make sure a piece is genuine?

Four signs that will not let you down:

  • The verification label: the big flashlight names such as NITECORE, FENIX and ACEBEAM put a label on the box that you scratch to reveal a code. Enter it on the company's site and it tells you whether the piece is genuine, and warns you if that code has been checked many times before you.
  • The numbers written on it: a genuine flashlight states the lumens, the distance in metres and the runtime to the ANSI FL1 standard. A copy writes one big lumen number and nothing else, no distance and no runtime. lumens measure the whole quantity of light, while how far the beam is thrown comes from how tightly it is focused, not from the big number.
  • The engraving on the blade: the company name and the country of manufacture are cut into the steel, not printed in ink that wears off. You know a Spyderco by its round thumb hole, and OPINEL engraves INOX if the steel is stainless and Carbone if it is carbon steel, engraved and not printed.
  • The invoice: take an invoice in the shop's name. It is the piece of paper that works for you on the day you need service, and word of mouth will not do it.

Why does the shop sell brands it does not hold the agency for?

Because the man heading out into the country is not buying a brand, he is buying something that will do the job. There are pieces with no agent in Qatar at all, and factories that sell through distributors rather than by exclusive agency. Binoculars are the plain example: we hold no binocular agency, and the shelf still has binoculars on it, because the falconer needs them and it would not be right to send him looking elsewhere.

What we hold ourselves to is that the man behind the counter tells you straight away: this one is an agency and this one is an import. An agency means there is a factory behind it; an import means the piece is a good one, but the service after the sale stops with the shop itself. And when you buy binoculars, read the size first: 10x42 means ten times magnification and a 42 mm front lens. The bigger lens gathers more light in the half dark, and the higher magnification shakes the picture in the hand and narrows the field of view without a rest.

What does it mean when goods carry the Al Huwaila name?

There are things we have made under the Al Huwaila name: camping kit and the consumable pieces that break and get replaced every season, pegs, bags, sheaths, things not worth paying a brand name for. We do not claim they come out of an international factory and they are not sold on that basis. Anybody who wants the brand will find it on the shelf beside them.

So, in short: 48 brands on the shelves, 13 of them on an official agency, and the rest between imports and goods under the shop's own name.

What do the 13 agencies cover?

  • Lighting and power: ACEBEAM, FENIX and NITECORE for hand torches and head torches, RovyVon for the small lights you hang on a keyring or drop in a pocket, and XTAR for rechargeable batteries and chargers. The lights are in the Flashlights section and the chargers in Electronics.
  • Hunting and folding knives: COLD STEEL, Spyderco, SCHRADE, OPINEL and Cudeman, from a fixed blade for skinning to a folder that travels in your pocket, all in the Hunting knives section.
  • Butchery and kitchen: F.DICK of Germany and ARCOS of Spain. These are butcher's knives in earnest, for skinning and cutting, not kitchen decoration.
  • Sharpening and upkeep: Smith's for sharpeners and stones. The piece nobody pays attention to until the day his blade starts passing over the meat instead of cutting it.

What do I do if a piece turns out to be faulty?

Bring it back to the shop with its invoice. They will look it over and tell you: a manufacturing fault or misuse. If it is a manufacturing fault in an agency piece, the return goes through the shop, and the shop is the one with somebody to call at the factory. If the piece is an import, the remedy comes from the shop itself, as far as the case allows. That is exactly the difference you do not feel on the day you buy, and do feel on the day you need it.

A practical word: keep the box and the code label, above all with flashlights, chargers and batteries. Most of the cases that become complicated are complicated because the owner threw the packaging away on the first day.

How do I buy and collect?

You can buy online and pay by bank card through the SkipCash gateway, with delivery inside Qatar. And if you would rather have the piece in your hand before you pay, the shop is in the Falcon Souq at Souq Waqif in Doha.

The hours are Sunday to Thursday 8:00 to 13:00 and 16:00 to 22:00, Friday 16:00 to 22:00, and Saturday closed. To ask whether a piece or a particular size is in: +974 4465 0041, or WhatsApp +974 5094 7142, and al_huwaila on Instagram and Snapchat.

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