E-commerce in Turkey went shiny last year especially with the contribution of marketplaces
Turkish e-commerce in 2019 grew 39%, became TL 83 billion (~ USD 12 billion), according the report (link in Turkish) by Informatics Industry Association (TÜBİSAD). “Turkey e-Commerce Market Size Report 2019” is published by TÜBİSAD with the partnership of Deloitte Turkey and collaboration of SimilarWeb and Inveon.
Notes from the report
Online retail, including online-only retail sub-category, has the lion share with 54% (TL 44.9 billion, ~USD 6.1 billion), holiday-travel with 36% (TL 30.2 billion, ~USD 4.1 billion) and online betting with 10% (TL 8 billion, ~USD 1.1 billion). We need to mention that marketplaces were the greatest contribtutors for the growth at online-only retail sub-category, with 50% growth and TL 29,3 billion (~USD 4.2 billion). Multichannel online retail, as a part of online retail category, had a share of TL 9.9 billion (~USD 1.4 billion) with the following breakdowns: Electronics (TL 4 billion, ~USD 571 million), clothes & shoes (TL 3.5 billion, ~USD 500 million), home & decoration (TL 1.7 billion, ~USD 243 milllion) and entertainment & culture (TL 700 milllion, ~USD 100 million).
760 websites measured
TÜBİSAD’s report also measured the number websites active in the Turkish e-commerce scene. Here they are: online-only retail (306 websites, 37% market share), holiday-travel (77 websites, 36% market share), multi-channel retail (371 websites, 17% market share) and online legal betting (6 websites, 10% market share). All in all, we can say TÜBİSAD evaluated 760 e-commerce websites. That was 728 sites in 2018, as a side note.
M-commerce now a part of the report
Starting from 2019 TÜBİSAD added m-commerce data to the report, including e-commerce via mobile apps and mobile internet. So the data said 60% of revenues of the above 760 websites come from m-commerce. The report claims, as the companies keep investments and as the users’ mobile experiences go up, the revenues are expected to increase 5-10% annually.
One final issue I need to mention: the share of e-commerce in total retail was 6.2% in 2019. As compared the developed nations with an average of 12.3%, Turkey remains in the mid range. Here are the top 5 countries total retail vs online retail: China (28.2%), England (18.3%), USA (15.2%), Germany (11.7%) and France (9.8%). Let me add: Turkey’s share of e-commerce in total retail in 2018 was 5.3%.
P.S: Turkish Lira fluctuates against foreign currencies. Nowadays $1 equals 7 liras.
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