Emre Ekmekci, President International at Hepsiburada:
“We feel very attracted by Russia’s fast-growing market and brand-savvy consumers”
In Turkey, Hepsiburada is the largest e-commerce brand connecting customers, suppliers and entrepreneurs on a single platform. Established in 2001 with the aim of “making people’s lives easier,” Hepsiburada is now one of Europe’s and Middle East’s fastest growing e-commerce companies: its 32 million unique monthly users are provided an access to millions of products from 36 categories. Emre Ekmekci, President International, told us about Hepsiburada’s cross-border experience and its partnership with Bringly to enter the Russian market.
What is your plan to sell outside of Turkey?
As an e-commerce platform, we have launched an easy-export model, involving our 17,000 business partners to export to international markets. At start, we will focus our marketing efforts on markets where there is cultural affinity with the Turkish culture. However, Hepsiburada now has the capability of selling and shipping millions of products anywhere around the world.
Why and when did you decide to start selling to Russian online consumers? What are the first results?
Russia is one of the top ten economies in the world¹, and Russian e-commerce is expected to more than double by 2023². In addition Russia has brand-savvy consumers; all this makes the country very attractive to Hepsiburada.
We are excited to be part of Yandex’s project to introduce customers to a new, efficient shopping experience with secure payment and fast delivery. We truly hope that our partnership with them will enhance cross-border shopping for Russian consumers.
We launched sales via Bringly in November 2018 as a test and went live full for the new-year. We are very happy with the results, volume and the variety of products that are being ordered.
Has your offer been adapted specifically to the Russian market?
In general, the most important element of our strategy is localization with the right pricing and relevant marketing strategies developed for each country. We are continuously tracking our customers’ buying behavior to know their preferences better. In Russia as elsewhere, Hepsiburada’s goal is to provide customized service based on this buying behavior.
We know that Russian consumers give a great importance to brands and product quality as well as its lifespan for people with a modest income. The price is often only a secondary indicator in purchasing decisions. Referring to this, we offer a wide selection of products with good quality at a great value.
Why did you choose Bringly as a partner?
Obviously, Yandex is Russia’s largest Internet company and strongly supports e-commerce development in Russia via its marketplaces, including Bringly. This hugely contributes to make the online shopping process better for users, and it perfectly fits with Hepsiburada’s vision.
Will you also market or sell your products via other channels?
Currently, we are selling only via Bringly in the Russian market, and we are extremely happy with the return of our partnership. We believe we’ll achieve even greater results together.
Bringly is doing a great job in creating awareness about our products. There is a huge potential in Russian market, and we are willing to implement marketing activities developed with Bringly to get more traffic. For the moment we are not considering doing marketing campaigns in Russia outside of our strategic partnership with Bringly.
How deeply did your logistics processes and compliance need to be adapted to Russian specifics?
Hepsiburada has a profound experience in all operations related to cross-border e-commerce. Logistics agreements, customs and tax legislation, payment methods, market-based pricing strategies, packaging in international standards, compliance with personal data protection, providing better customer service are our core activities, and should be overseen in full details.
We also understand that protecting our customers’ personal data all around the world is a very sensitive matter, and deal with it with utmost attention.
Interview conducted in March 2019
¹ According to the IMF’s 2018 estimates, Russia ranks 12th in the world for GDP and 6th in purchasing power parity.
² Mr. Ekmekci is referring to the Morgan Stanley report released in October 2018, which estimates Russian e-commerce market size (excluding services and digital goods) at some $17 billion in 2018 and $52 billion by 2023.
President International
Hepsiburada
Bio