Most online sellers in Türkiye use only one marketplace to sell their products. This makes them highly dependent on the algorithms, pricing, and other conditions of that platform. Trendyol and Hepsiburada hold an enormous market power.
“Platform addiction traps small businesses”, writes Türkiye Today about the situation. Besides growth, the market is characterized by a “deep digital divide”, according to the English-language news outlet.
Online spending on the rise
Last year, ecommerce spending in Türkiye grew by 62 percent in the local currency. A large part of this increase was due to inflation. Converted into euros, growth amounted to 16 percent – still substantial – reaching 61.5 billion euros (or 89.6 billion dollars, which was an increase of 15 percent) in online spending from about 6 billion transactions.
Ecommerce in Türkiye grew by 16% in euro value
Spending, when converted into dollars, was nearly four times higher than in 2020, a sign that growth has been strong for years. By now, more than six hundred thousand Turkish companies are active as online sellers.
Istanbul and the rest
There are some caveats to this growth. The first is that ecommerce is still barely established in large parts of Türkiye. Nearly two-thirds of spending (63.3 percent) comes from residents of Istanbul, where 93 percent of the population shops online. In many other regions, penetration is below 30 percent.
Istanbul accounts for nearly two-thirds of online sales
Turks mainly buy books, magazines, fashion, and electronics online. In food, the share is just 4 percent. “It is as if Türkiye has gone digital for wants but not for needs”, writes Türkiye Today.
Platform dependence
Regional differences are also evident on the supply side. Rural businesses often lack the infrastructure or expertise to diversify beyond single platforms. Of all platform sellers in Türkiye, 78 percent are active on only one marketplace, according to figures from the Turkish Ministry of Trade.
78% of platform sellers use only one marketplace
“It is believed that sellers’ behavior is influenced by their desire to focus on the marketplace with the highest traffic (network effect) in their respective sectors and to work with a single marketplace whose rules they are familiar with”, the ministry writes in a report on ecommerce in Türkiye.
Trendyol
In doing so, sellers surrender themselves to the whims of Hepsiburada and especially Trendyol, the absolute market leader in Turkish ecommerce. The Istanbul-based company is largely owned by the Chinese Alibaba Group. The top-10 European online store opened its doors to shoppers in Germany in 2022 and later expanded to several other European countries.