Minister of Commerce Ömer Bolat recently pointed out that the share of e-export in our total exports is 1,5 percent and announced that the 2028 target is to increase this rate to 10 percent. This statement turned the attention of manufacturers, especially SMEs, who have not yet met e-export, to online exports. Stating that the biggest obstacle to e-export is lack of courage, TOBB E-commerce Council Member and Ticimax E-commerce Systems Founding CEO Cenk Çiğdemli explained 6 difficulties that companies may encounter in online exports and their solutions. Stating that they are trying to encourage Turkish companies to open up to the world by providing free e-commerce and e-export training within the Ticimax Campus, Çiğdemli listed the possible difficulties as target markets, payment methods, opening a company abroad, returns, foreign languages and regulations.
– The most important step for those new to e-export is choosing the right target market. Many people target too many countries at once, resulting in inefficient fragmentation of advertising budgets. Since consumers have different expectations in each country, brands that set out with multiple target markets experience focusing problems. Knowing your target countries and the trends and expectations of potential customers within them is the key to success. Therefore, target as many countries as you can focus on. The right thing to do is to choose a maximum of 3-4 target countries to start with. This way, you can effectively divide your advertising budget between countries. It should also be noted that each country has its own regulations. The fewer countries you choose to start with, the easier it will be for you to learn their rules and regulations. Concentrating your energy and focus on a few countries creates space for you to better understand the behavior and trends of consumers in those countries. In this way, you can determine your extremely important localization policies accurately and precisely.
PAYMENT METHODS
– People are hesitant to write their credit card information on sites when shopping via e-commerce. This is especially the case in the US and European markets. For this reason, payment systems such as Stripe and PayPal are generally used. The fact that Paypal is banned in our country is a serious problem at this point. Stripe, on the other hand, demands that its system be used by brands that have companies in certain countries. To use both payment methods, it is necessary to open a company abroad (usually one of the European countries). However, there is no rule that e-export can only be made with these payment methods. You can sell through global marketplaces such as Etsy, Amazon, Trendyol and e-PTT without any payment problems. We also have some banks that offer payment integration for e-export. By working with banks that offer these services, it is possible to easily make e-exports with only ETGB documents. However, if you are planning a large-scale e-export operation, then it may be better to open a company in a country where generally accepted payment methods such as PayPal and Stripe are valid.
OPENING A COMPANY ABROAD
– Opening a company abroad may seem difficult, but unfortunately it is necessary to open a company abroad in order to use payment systems such as Paypal, Stripe, etc. Additionally, if you have 300 to 1000 international shipments per day to the same country, it will be profitable for you to open a company and send the shipment from that country. Because it would be more advantageous to get fulfillment service by making an agreement with a warehouse in a city in your target region, instead of shipping that many goods from Turkey every day and paying 20 Euros/22 dollars per cargo. In this way, you will also reduce the amount you will pay for shipping. There are companies in Turkey that specialize in opening companies abroad. By getting help from these companies, you can open a company in any Europe, America or England for only 300 dollars. Remember that when you open a company, you will also have to pay taxes in that country. There are financial consultancy companies that specialize in this and can guide you.
RETURNS
– Especially in textiles, product returns are almost 50 percent in European countries. You can have the product brought back to Turkey with your ETGB document, but you must pay again the 20 Euros/22 dollars you paid when sending it. Since this will be an additional expense, it is best to make an agreement with a warehouse in the country where you sell, where your returned products will be collected. When the products reach a certain quantity, you can request that they be sent in bulk. This way, you won't have to pay 20 Euros/22 dollars for each piece individually. You can have the products brought to Turkey for a lower price by packing them all together. Or you don't bring the products to Turkey at all. By making an agreement with the warehouse, if another customer orders the same product in the same region, you will have the product sent from the warehouse.
FOREIGN LANGUAGE
– If you do not know a foreign language, this may pose an obstacle in the e-export process. But this is not such a big problem anymore. By using an AI service such as ChatGPT, you can have translations done and easily print the features of the products into the artificial intelligence. For example, we provide artificial intelligence integration for those using Ticimax infrastructure. Thus, the seller can have the product description made by artificial intelligence.
REGULATIONS
– Finally, you should not forget that the regulations and laws of the countries may also pose a problem. For this reason, you should focus on as many countries as you can and learn the trade rules, customs costs and tax laws of each before you set off. For example, if you sell the product in Turkey for 600 lira and there is a customs fee of 600 lira, you should calculate and determine the price of the product accordingly.
