Amazon launches local ecommerce site for Turkey | Industry

Amazon has launched its ecommerce business in Turkey, the company’s seventh market in Europe and sixteenth globally.

Reports first emerged a few months back that Amazon was preparing a localized business for the Turkish market, and today the company officially opened a new domain at Amazon.com.tr.

While Amazon has been available globally for a while, in that shoppers anywhere could buy some goods from international sellers, that has often meant long delivery times and hefty shipping fees.

Until now, the company has offered localized services — with an in-country Amazon domain, and typically local warehousing — in 15 markets, including Amazon.com (the U.S.). In Europe, specifically, the company has operated in Germany and the U.K. since 1998, as well as in France (2000), Italy (2010), Spain (2011), and the Netherlands (2014). However, not all the localized domains offer a full suite of Amazon services — for example, Amazon’s Netherlands business only sells ebooks, with local shoppers encouraged to buy other goods via Amazon’s German portal.

Warehousing

Turkey represents Amazon’s first European launch outside the European Union (E.U.) market, and at launch it is open to a range of products across 15 categories, including books, electronics, toys, and more. But while Turkish sellers are now able to open a local merchant’s account, it appears Amazon itself has yet to fully embrace the local market — there is no mention at all of local warehousing or fulfillment services.

“Since the launch of Amazon.com in 1995, hundreds of thousands of Amazon customers in Turkey have ordered millions of items from existing Amazon stores around the globe,” said Amazon’s country manager for Turkey, Sam Nicols. “Today, we are thrilled to now offer Turkish customers a selection of millions of products, including products from over one thousand local Turkish businesses.”

Amazon became the second U.S. company to hit a market capitalization of $1 trillion earlier this month, but its shares have dipped around 7 percent in the weeks that followed. Its launch in Turkey likely won’t have a huge impact on the company’s share price, but a country with a population of nearly 80 million represents a notable expansion for the company and will go some way toward boosting its revenues in the region.