Emre Ekmekçi, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Electronic Commerce Operators Association, announced that the e-commerce sector grew 85 percent in 2020 due to the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak and that the sector’s 2021 volume target was 400 billion liras.
According to the data of the Electronic Commerce Operators Association (ETID), online shopping expenditures grew by 85 percent in 2020 compared to the previous year with the effect of the coronavirus epidemic. The 2021 target of the e-commerce sector, which is expected to close the year with a turnover of 250 billion lira, was 400 billion lira.
ETID announced the e-commerce data for 2020. Accordingly, there were significant developments in the e-commerce sector last year with the pandemic period. People moved their old shopping habits to digital with new shopping types without leaving their homes.
E-commerce has become a driving force in this process where consumers have adopted new shopping habits. This increase in supply and demand has led many brands that previously made physical sales to sell online. For this reason, many brands that had not digitalized before stepped into the e-commerce sector. They entered the e-commerce market by developing new different business models.
“Online grocery shopping increased five times”
ETID Chairman Emre Ekmekçi, whose views were included in the statement, said, “With the effect of the pandemic, the sector broke a record in 2020 and grew 85 percent. We expect the e-commerce sector to close the year with a volume of 250 billion lira.”
Ekmekçi stated that within the scope of the pandemic measures, the shopping behavior of citizens has changed and the transition to online shopping and online transactions has increased rapidly, and reported that the leading online shopping category of the year was supermarket. Ekmekçi continued as follows:
“According to the data of the Ministry of Commerce, online grocery shopping increased five times during the pandemic period. Fresh and cold chain food shopping became the rising stars of e-commerce. When we look at the age scale, there used to be a perception that people under the age of 45 preferred online shopping. Today, this scale has changed to 18-70 years old. Average basket amounts were 178.8 liras for card transactions, 63.2 liras for remittance, EFT and other payments and 70.6 liras for payment at the door. The ranking of the provinces with the most online shopping was realized as Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir, Bursa, Antalya and Konya.”
“The number of SMEs engaged in e-commerce increased from 69 thousand to 100 thousand”
Emre Ekmekçi stated that new business models have come to life as a result of the increase in supply and demand. Underlining that every small and large-scale organization that overcomes the physical restrictions imposed by the pandemic measures and invests in e-commerce and performs its sales and services through e-commerce has won, Ekmekçi made the following evaluations:
“Due to the pandemic, 63 percent of SMEs selling both in the physical channel and in the digital channel experienced a decrease in turnover due to the problems experienced in their physical channels. Therefore, if they did not have sales in the digital channel, the turnover decrease for about half of these SMEs would have been 50 percent higher. The number of e-commerce SMEs increased from 69 thousand to 100 thousand. A total of 68 thousand 457 businesses in Turkey are engaged in e-commerce activities. Cargo started to have difficulty in carrying the intensity of the sector
companies started to provide services with new business models and growing infrastructures. We did not experience the logistics and cargo problems experienced last year this year. The sector has progressed more prepared during the discount campaign periods this year. Therefore, complaints about logistics and cargo issues have also decreased. Especially during the New Year shopping campaigns, orders placed until 16.00 reached homes with same-day delivery. On days when there were curfew restrictions, cargoes worked, and orders were delivered to consumers in a planned manner without any problems.”
“Taboos disappeared”
ETID Chairman Ekmekçi stated that they expect the growth and investments in the sector to continue in the same way after the pandemic, and that during the pandemic period, consumers got used to affordable price options and easy shopping, especially in e-commerce. Likewise, Ekmekçi stated that manufacturers and the retail sector have also started to adapt to the accessibility, low cost and opportunities of e-commerce, “There may be concerns that traditional shopping methods will be damaged with the increase in e-commerce. However, we have sector representatives who successfully run systems where traditional and e-commerce will work together. While the frequency of online shopping has increased, consumers have been facilitated with new payment methods.” Ekmekçi stated that a world where even order mechanisms are digitalized has emerged, and that a company or retailer without an online strategy cannot be considered today. Ekmekçi stated that the number of e-commerce organizations may increase in the coming period as the taboos formed in the minds with the pandemic period have also disappeared, and made the following statement:
“Bu artış sürecinin yine tüketici taleplerine yönelik yapılacak yatırımlarla 2021’de 400 milyarı geçmesini öngörüyoruz. Bu yılın aynı zamanda vergi indirimleri, devlet destekleri ve global platformların yatırımları ile e-ihracatın büyük bir ivme kazanacağını düşünüyoruz. 01 Ocak itibari ile yürürlüğe giren internet üzerinden yurt dışına satış yapan mikro ihracatçıya yüzde 50 vergi muafiyeti devletimizin ileride vereceği destek paketlerinin de bir öncü habercisi oldu. Öte yandan 2021 teslimat konusunda yenilikçi iş modellerinin yılı olacak. On binlerce e-ticaret teslimat noktasının hayata geçmesi hedefleniyor. Bu kapsamda AVM’ler, esnaf ve benzin istasyonları teslimat noktası olabilecek. Bu yeni düzenlemelerle lojistik alanındaki istihdamın da iki kat artmasını bekliyoruz.”
Kaynak: https://www.dunya.com/sektorler/e-ticaret-sektorunun-2021-hedefi-400-milyar-lira-haberi-607141
