The e-trade market in Turkey is growing fast on rising consumer trust, professionals say. Hürriyet photo
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.
Economic relations between Jerusalem, Ankara appear unaffected by political tensions
Assaf Rosen
Heading to Turkey?
Israel Export and International Cooperation Institute (IEICI) on Monday revealed Israel’s leading export destinations in the first quarter of 2011. Despite political tensions, which worsened a year ago following the Gaza flotilla affair, Turkey was ranked third – up from the ninth place last year.
China maintained the fifth place, India fell to the eighth place from the second place, and Spain was replaced by Canada in the top 10.
An analysis of the figures points to changes in the ranking of Israel’s main export destinations in the first quarter of 2011. According to an IEICI analysis, the United States remains in the first place with exports totaling some $3 million (excluding diamonds) – a 12% increase compared to the same period last year.
Holland ranked second, up from the third place last year, serving as Israel’s biggest export destination in Europe – despite a slight drop (3%) in exports, which totaled some $517 million.
The export of goods to Turkey, excluding diamonds, totaled $500 million – a 73% rise compared to the same quarter last year. IEICI officials stressed that the exports to Turkey recorded the biggest growth in the past year.
“The sharp rise in exports to Turkey stems mainly from the growth in the chemicals and oil refining industries, which rose by 57% compared to the same period last year, totaling $260 million,” the IEICI said in a statement.
Germany was ranked fourth – up from the sixth place in the first quarter of 2010. “The export of goods to Germany, excluding diamonds, totaled some $473 million – a 22% increase compared to the same period last year,” the report’s authors wrote.
“China, in the fifth place, is solidifying is status as a stable and growing export destination and as Israel’s biggest export destination in Asia. The export of goods to China, excluding diamonds, totaled some $443 million – a 12% rise compared to the same period last year.”
India, which was ranked the second export destination in the same period last year, fell to the eighth place this year, with exports totaling $336 million – a 45% drop compared to same period last year.
“It should be noted,” the IEICI said, “that the drop stems mainly from an exceptional growth in the exports to India in last year’s first quarter.
“The export industries which led to the sharp drop were telecommunications, which fell by 45% to $108 million, and the aircraft industry, which was affected by a unique deal in 2010 and fell from $100 million to zero.”
Commenting on foreign investors exiting the market, İstanbul Stock Exchange (İMKB) President Hüseyin Erkan has said that foreign investors only represent the 16 percent of the bourse and therefore a capital outflow of $1.6 billion is not cause for concern.
İMKB President Hüseyin Erkan
Erkan spoke during the general assembly of the İMKB on Monday and underlined that he was very impressed with the interest shown in the benchmark index (İMKB-100). Also touching on the hot topic at the moment, he said that foreign capital outflows had been witnessed in the İMKB, Erkan noted that foreign investors had purchased stocks with a total value of $2.1 billion in 2010 whereas foreign investors’ total sales in the first five months of this year amounted to only $1.6 billion. “These numbers are really nothing to worry about. The total share of foreigners in our bourse is only 16 percent. I cannot understand people yelling that foreigners are leaving the country or that they are manipulating the market. These are all lies and misleading interpretations,” Erkan said.
Last Friday Turkish shares reached their lowest level in almost three months due to concerns that the central bank is failing to take the measures required to rein in the country’s widening current account deficit. Despite the credit rating upgrades by international rating agencies and despite analysts sharing a common view that Turkey’s credit rating could be increased to “investment grade” after the general elections, the İMKB-100 tumbled by 915.71 points, or 1.5 percent, to 61.491 points at 5:30 p.m. on Friday, the lowest since March 8 after American investment bank JPMorgan Chase & Co. cut the rating of the country’s stock market to “underweight” from “overweight,” citing a growing current account deficit and reduced profit forecasts for banks.
The central bank has increased reserve requirements of banks four times since December to help curb the lending that is being used to buy imported goods and widen the current account gap. Annual loan growth is exceeding 35 percent currently compared with the central bank target of 25 percent, banking regulator data published on Friday confirmed.
Foreign investors: Good or bad?
It has been debated many times whether the İMKB will be dominated by foreign investors and whether they would exit Turkey when they reached their projected profit. Ahmed Münir Bulut, a dealer at participation bank Türkiye Finans, said in a previous statement to Today’s Zaman that foreigner investors are considered long-term investors compared to domestic ones and do not leave the market unless there is a serious problem, such as political tension, that could cause instability. Bulut added that he sees no risk from foreign investors having a high or low percentage of the Turkish market as long as there are no shocks in or outside Turkey.
Analyst Abdulkadir Çakır points to a different issue and says the decline or increase of foreign investors’ shares in the İMKB will not be enough to give the whole picture. He believes there is a big difference between long and short-term investors. “In order to analyze this issue, a distinction should be made between long-term investors such as pension funds, which are more risk averse, and short-term investors like hedge funds, which are more risk seeking,” said Çakır. “Short-term investors are seen as risky investors that use high leverage, a way in finance to multiply gains or losses. A well-known example of a short-term investor case is the mortgage crisis in 2008 where these investors walked away from the Turkish market immediately after news of the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers hit the headlines in the US. The market reacted negatively to this ‘money flight’ and a fast decline in the market was unavoidable.”
Politics aside: Turkey rose from ninth place in the corresponding quarter of 2010.
30 May 11 14:05, Tal Moise
Notwithstanding political tensions between Israel and Turkey, Turkey rose to Israel’s third largest export market in the first quarter from ninth place in the corresponding quarter of 2010, the Israel Export and International Cooperation Institute reports today. Exports of goods (excluding diamonds) to Turkey totaled $500 million in the first quarter, 73% more than in the corresponding quarter.
The US is still Israel’s largest export market, with exports to that country totaling $3 billion
Exports to Turkey rose more than exports to other countries. According to Export Institute figures, most of the growth is thanks to to a 57% increase in exports of chemicals and refined oil products to $260 million in the first quarter.
China is Israel’s fifth largest export market, and the largest export market in Asia. Exports to China totaled $443 million in the first quarter, 12% more than in the corresponding quarter. Exports to India fell 6% to $336 million, putting it in eighth place, mainly due to unusually heavy exports to it in the corresponding quarter. Exports of avionics were affected by a single deal in 2010, and fell from $100 million to zero.
Israel’s top ten export markets are, in order, the US, the Netherlands, Turkey, Germany, China, Italy, the UK, India, France, and Canada.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news – www.globes-online.com – on May 30, 2011
This file photo shows customers at the opening day of a technology shop in central Istanbul. Electronic goods in Turkey are usually imported. Hürriyet photos
Turkey paid a total of $29.45 billion over the last five years for 18 items that are not produced in the domestic market, according to a recent report from the Istanbul Chamber of Certified Public Accountants, or ISMMMO.
High-technology products led by helicopters, aircraft, mobile phones and laptops, constitute a great part of Turkey’s imports, in addition to mines, agricultural products and energy resources such as oil, according to the report. The “Turkey’s Industrial Production and Facts” report is prepared as a result of an extensive observation of 3,000 different industrial items.
“Instead of allocating billions of dollars each year to imports, Turkey should attach more importance to research and development studies and prevent brain drain,” said Yahya Arıkan, chairman of the İSMMMO. “We cannot even produce watches or devises used for measuring blood pressure.”
Helicopters and aircrafts have led Turkey’s imported industrial products list for the last five years, followed by mobile phones in the second spot. Turkey paid a total of $8.4 million for helicopter and aircraft imports between 2006 and 2010 and $6.9 million for mobile phone imports.
Turkey is experiencing a great weakness and economic loss with high-technology products, the report said, adding that the country pays billions of dollars to foreign countries each year to import many technological products.
Turkey pays some $7.8 billion each year to import a total of 18 products that cannot be produced in the domestic market, the report said. The amount paid abroad totaled nearly $30 billion over the last five years, according to the report.
High-technology products lead by optical instruments, medical imaging devices, printers and copier machines and consumer electronics such as mobile phones and digital cameras are considerably imported from the Eastern Asian countries, the report said. According to the report, laptops come in the third spot with a total cost of $4.4 million, followed by informatic product components with $2.6 million. Printers, scanners and copier machines totaling $1.4 million are the other technological products in the list. The watch sector’s imports also have quite a big share, representing $1 million in the total amount.
Recalling the domestic automobile production debate, Arıkan said, “Before this discussion, we should discuss our economy, which is unable to produce cameras, motorboats, lenses for cameras, blood pressure gauges and even watches.
“Turkey can produce technology,” Arıkan said. “Specialization, cooperation, planning and investments are needed. We can reach prosperity and social stability only by complying with technological revolutions.”
A major horse show and equestrian fair is being planned in Istanbul, Turkey, next year.
