Recently, eBay announced that it will stop operating in the Turkish market and close its GittiGidiyor business (a well-known local auction site in Turkey)

eBay said the move was a difficult but strategic decision made after regular reviews of its global business operations and intensified competition in the market.

# eBay Turkey site outage there are traces to follow #

eBay's shutdown of the Turkish market is not without a trace. Although Statista previously predicted that the Turkish e-commerce market will reach US$6.726 billion by 2022, and it will become the country with the fastest compound annual growth rate of retail e-commerce in the world.

However, Turkey's inflation rate has continued to soar since the second half of last year.

According to the latest data from the Turkish Statistics Agency, the inflation rate in Turkey reached 69.97% in April this year, hitting a new high in the past 20 years. Trendyol, the Turkish e-commerce giant invested by Ali, is also in a bad situation.

It is worth noting that, unlike the Spanish site where Shopee shut down the pilot, eBay's Turkish market is no longer a simple "trial operation project".

It is reported that GittiGidiyor was established in 2001, and the platform product categories include electronic products, decoration, beauty, mother and baby products, fashion and groceries.

In 2007, eBay made its first investment in GittiGidiyor.

At the time, Lorrie Norrington, who was president of eBay's international marketplaces, said GittiGidiyor's business model and community-focused approach was a "great complement" to eBay's marketplace business.

In 2011, eBay acquired a 95% stake in GittiGidiyor and operated it as an independent platform. After that, eBay sellers can sell to Turkish consumers by entering GittiGidiyor without opening a store.

Up to now, the two sides have been united for 11 years.

eBay Turkey lead no longer

#1

For the cut-off of the business that has operated for more than ten years, the main reason for eBay's performance to turn a loss is.

In the first quarter of 2022, eBay's net revenue fell by 6% year-on-year, excluding the impact of exchange rate changes, it was down 5% year-on-year; the net loss was US$1.339 billion , compared with the net profit of US$5.68 in the same period last year, and the year-on-year profit turned into a loss . .

The closure of GittiGidiyor is likely due to lower consumer demand in hopes of streamlining the company's business.

GittiGidiyor used to be the number one e-commerce site in Turkey, especially when it comes to buying and selling second-hand goods, it's a platform that almost everyone knows. Despite the head start, the platform was unable to maintain its early lead.

GittiGidiyor gradually lost its leadership position as its competitors grew. SimilarWeb, which analyzes website data, said eBay is not among the top five e-commerce sites in Turkey by sales revenue.

#2

The changing landscape of e-commerce in Turkey

Amazon launched its Prime service in Turkey in 2020 and will invest $100 million to open its first logistics base in Istanbul this fall; Hepsiburada saw GMV increase by 84.4% in the first quarter of 2022 to 8.3 billion lire.

In a situation where growth is not optimistic, the overweight and business growth of these competitors has brought great pressure to eBay.

However, with the improvement of local payment methods and logistics networks, as well as issues such as cultural policies, competition, and supervision, many e-commerce platforms have suffered setbacks here, and eBay has not been spared.

# eBay will lose 4 million active buyers! #

However, in a note on exiting the Turkish market, eBay does not expect the closure of GittiGidiyor to have a material impact on its second-quarter or full-year results.

It is understood that as a leading e-commerce website in Turkey, GittiGidiyor has more than 19 million registered users and more than 60 million monthly visits. GittiGidiyor contributed about 4 million active buyers to eBay by the end of the first quarter of 2022.

Regardless of whether the shutdown of GittiGidiyor will have a significant impact on eBay's performance, it will lose a large number of active buyers.

According to the announcement, eBay will continue to work closely with GittiGidiyor buyers and sellers to assist them in migrating off the platform and will share more detailed information with them.

Until September 5, 2022, both sellers and buyers of the Turkish site will have access to the My Account page. But since the announcement date, sellers can no longer list new products; from July 18, buyers will not be able to buy items on the GittiGidiyor platform.