Turkish Internet users enjoy selling to each other

ISTANBUL – Hürriyet Daily News

Consumer-to-consumer business, or C2C, which involves Internet transactions between consumers via services by third parties, is becoming extremely popular among Turkish Internet users, according to professionals speaking at a sector meeting in Istanbul.

“Turkey currently has 28 million Internet users,” said Burak Ertaş, general manager of www.sahibinden.com, an online shopping platform, where people and businesses buy and sell real estate, cars and a broad range of goods and services.

“Only one year ago, the total number of online shoppers across Turkey was around 3 million,” Ertaş told the Hürriyet Daily News on the sidelines of the e-commerce Retailers’ Association, or ETİD, meeting on Wednesday.

This number had already exceeded 6 million by January this year, he said. “Turkey has a great potential of growth thanks to its young population,” said Ertaş, adding that many Internet users used to stay away from e-commerce for a number of reasons.

“Looking at the people around, I come across many Turks purchasing flight tickets, buying high-heel shoes, creams, flowers and furniture online with no hesitation,” said Ertaş.

He said that even in the heart of Anatolia, in small villages, many producers were marketing their own products, such as honey, to the world through online platforms to consumers.

According to him, this is closely related with the trust that Turkish consumers have developed toward well-known online shopping platforms in recent years. The security precautions on the Internet have encouraged Turkish consumers to use their credit cards and personal information more easily, Ertaş added.

“For example we have a security system which deletes the credit card number automatically from the database right after the purchase is completed,” he said.

Many foreign investors are interested in acquiring online platforms in Turkey as the dynamism of the market has stimulated the appetite of the international giants, said Ertaş.

New trend

“The online auction has died in the Turkish market,” said Cenk Angın, general manager of www.gittigidiyor.com, an online shopping platform at which he discontinued his online auctions four months ago.

Online auctions, in which a consumer posts an item for sale and other consumers bid to purchase it, have lost their market share in the total number of goods purchased online, he said.

He explained that the Groupon-like online shopping platforms, which are known as “daily deals,” feature discounted gift certificates usable at local or nationwide companies and are among the top “shopping trends in Turkey.”

Total e-commerce revenues in Turkey increased 45 percent in the first three months of the year compared with the same period last year. According to figures provided by Turkey’s Interbank Card Center, or BKM, the total has reached 4.84 billion Turkish Liras.

via Turkish Internet users enjoy selling to each other – Hurriyet Daily News and Economic Review.