by Tuncay Kayaoglu
ISTANBUL
A busy executive at a consulting firm, Bahadir Aydin, 30, needed to buy a watch, so he looked no further than his smartphone.
Working a tight schedule, Aydin had no time to visit shops. But, thanks to the m-commerce platforms on the smartphone, he could look for the watch while waiting for buses or in between appointments.
And he found a watch he now loves, a popular brand wristwatch that has a leather strap and square black frame with a silver band.
"Shopping on my smartphone made it all possible," Aydin said.
The popularity of mobile shopping is rising rapidly in Turkey. According to the online shopping website, hepsiburada.com, one of every two orders is completed through handheld devices while 62 percent of website traffic comes through such devices during weekends and holiday periods.
“During the last year, mobile traffic to 'hepsiburada.com' has doubled,” according to a statement published on the site.
Burak Ertas, CEO of another Turkish shopping website called Sahibiden.com, agreed, in an interview with Anadolu Agency, that the importance of mobile traffic on the site was increasing rapidly.
The volume of electronic commerce has reached 18.9 billion Turkish liras ($6,2 billion) in 2014, according to Istanbul-based Informatics Industry Association (TUBISAD).
M-commerce represents roughly $3 billion in trade volume taking into account that one of every two online transactions are being conducted on mobile websites.
German-based market research institute GFK’s Istanbul Bureau said last June that during the first five months of this year, more than 4,5 million smartphones have been sold. More than 11 million smart devices will be purchased in Turkey by the end of this year, according to GFK.
In 2014, the sale of smartphones was 89 percent of total mobile phone sales. In 2013, this percentage was 74 percent.
Mobile commerce is “exploding all over the world Thomas Husson, a principal analyst at U.S. based Forrester Research, told Anadolu Agency that.”
In Europe, mobile and tablet commerce already represents an average of more than 25 percent of online sales, Husson pointed out.China, Japan, South Korea are “mature mobile markets." Turkey will definitely be part of that group soon, he added.
Husson stated that in some countries like India, Nigeria or Africa, mobile traffic has already surpassed desktop traffic. It can easily represent from 30 to 50 percent of retailers' and brands' traffic in Europe and the U.S.
Husson, however, stressed that the huge opportunity lies in influencing sales through a highly developed mobile experience. “In a nutshell, mobile commerce is so much than e-commerce on smartphones.”
In a bid to enhance the mobile experience, hepsiburada.com, for example, alerted users through mobile apps for special offers and discounts.
Also, users can also research a product they see in-store through the app to learn its price at online.
Ertas, of sahibinden.com, said his company has tried to enhance the mobile experience by updating apps frequently to present users with more features. “We invest a lot in the mobile experience,” Ertas said, although he declined to discuss figures. The company has recently allowed users to post advertisements through mobile apps.
As Turkey has completed a tender for 4.5G networks, and it is set to go live next April, online companies expect to be able to provide more access and commerce through mobile channels.
“It is going to boost this ongoing trend,” Ertas said.
Husson also forecast that higher connectivity will pave the way for retailers to provide more personal and contextual service to consumers.
“People now have huge expectations that they can be served on mobiles, depending on their immediate context and time of need,” Husson said.
