Limiting Ecommerce Platforms Advertising Budgets – Last Minute Economy News

While global data shows that retail e-commerce sales, which grew 20% in 2022, ended the year with a volume of $5.7 trillion, e-commerce, which has become one of the most popular business models of recent years, began to become a matter of curiosity about what lies ahead in 2023.

Mustafa Namoğlu, CEO of ikas, which offers a new generation of e-commerce infrastructure, shared his assessments on e-commerce trends in 2023, which will be shaped on the one hand by global trends and the e-commerce regulation that came into effect after being published in the Official Gazette of our country.

ENHANCE AUGMENTED REALITY, ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND INTEGRATIONS

Advances in technologies such as artificial intelligence and computer-aided image generation have also been noticed by e-commerce professionals looking to provide users with more immersive experiences. Augmented reality (AR) technology, which allows customers to realistically view the product in three dimensions before buying it, has become more useful and accessible with artificial intelligence. Case B is expected to significantly reduce customer returns.

As competition in e-commerce grows with each passing period, providing an uninterrupted experience has become the prerequisite for increasing sales and conversion rates. The fact that the way to create loyal customers in e-commerce is to provide operational excellence at every stage of shopping has also influenced the trends. Thus, integrations such as payment infrastructure, freight, call center and marketplace integration were among the trends of 2023.

PAYMENT INFRASTRUCTURE AND ADVERTISING BUDGET LIMITATIONS

Another development that affected the e-commerce sector and the activities of the marketplaces in Turkey was in the area of ​​regulation. With the e-commerce regulation approved by the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (TBMM), published in the Official Gazette and entered into force, some restrictions were placed on the activities of marketplaces with high transaction volumes to ensure fair competition in the sector.

WHAT ARE THESE RESTRICTIONS?

– Restriction of payment, freight and sector transactions: It has been decided that marketplaces with an annual net transaction volume of more than 60 billion TL cannot offer solutions such as credit or electronic money. In addition, the inability of product-oriented marketplaces to provide brokerage services in the tourism, education, real estate or automotive sectors stood out among the regulations. The inability of e-commerce marketplaces to provide freight services other than their own sales was also captured by the regulation.

– Campaign and advertising restrictions: Under the new regulation, it has been noted that marketplaces with a transaction volume of up to 30 billion lira can conduct year-round discounts of 2% of the transaction volume, and marketplaces with a transaction volume of more than 30 billion lira can discount campaigns make up to 3% of transaction volume. While advertising budgets were also capped based on transaction volume, it was stated that the Department of Commerce will receive a portion of the marketplaces’ annual transaction volume, called the Electronic Commerce Share, to support small and medium-sized businesses.

WHAT TO CONSIDER WHEN CHOOSING AN INFRASTRUCTURE FOR E-COMMERCE?

While marketplaces remain an important sales channel for SMEs with their high traffic volumes and platform capabilities, the number of SMEs that have opened their own e-commerce platform using turnkey next-generation e-commerce infrastructures has also increased in recent years. Mustafa Namoğlu made suggestions on how to choose a platform for SMEs looking to enter e-commerce or improve their existing channel.

“Given that 87% of consumers give up a purchase with a 2 second delay and that online shopping is mostly done from mobile, the importance of platform speed and usability has reemerged. On the other hand, providing reliable payment infrastructures and reliable site design was seen to have a positive effect on shopping cart abandonment rates. It has become important to use new generation e-commerce infrastructures that enable easy sales abroad with integration and e-export modules.”