Turkish ecommerce growing faster than wider economy

• Minister says ecommerce is up 26%
• Exports grew 131% last year
• Potential for domestic growth

Turks are embracing online life in ever growing numbers, both as users and as service providers, with ecommerce gaining a strong foothold in the domestic economy and scaling up in overseas markets.

Turkish ecommerce is expanding at a rate far faster than the general economy, Ömer Bolat, the trade minister, told delegates at a summit on September 2. 

“Ecommerce increased by a compound 26 percent between 2019 and 2023,” Bolat said. “The share of ecommerce of GDP grew by a third last year to 6.8 percent of the total.”

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While the domestic market is expanding strongly, the export component of Turkey’s ecommerce industry is far outstripping it in terms of growth, the minister said. 

Bolat reported that ecommerce exports grew by 131 percent and reached $5 billion last year, and said the aim is to reach $8 billion this year.

Under Turkey’s taxation regulations, local companies can easily conduct online exports, according to Fehmi Darbay, the chairman of the executive board of Turkey’s Electronic Trades Association.

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“Now it is not hard to open up abroad,” he told AGBI on the sidelines of the summit. 

“Within a month of introducing [China-based retail platform] AliExpress to Turkey, Turkish small-scale businesses were exporting to 53 separate countries. When we look at it today the potential has increased highly.”

Ecommerce also has the potential to increase domestically. According to a report issued in late August by state statistics agency Turkstat, 88.8 percent of Turks are active online, with 96 percent of households nationally having internet access, more than 50 percent higher than a decade ago. 

Room for growth

While internet penetration rates are near saturation point, the level of usage for ecommerce purposes still has space for growth, the Turkstat report suggested. 

Just under 52 percent of Turks reported using online services for buying or ordering goods and services in the past year, with the annualised rate of increase just 1.8 percent. 

This could rise, according to Darbay, in response to newly introduced customs regulations increasing duties on imported goods bought online and lowering the price threshold for duties to be applied.

“While we have seen a slowdown recently as a result of the weakened purchasing power of the public – because of the current economic situation due to new customs regulations and higher tariffs enacted some weeks ago, erecting serious obstacles to e-imports – we expect an increased focus on local ecommerce,” he said. 

“Companies and citizens have got used to ecommerce. The balance in the domestic market is progressing well.”