# Arabulvar (2012 – 2015)

- URL: https://girisimcikafasi.com/en/startup-graveyard/arabulvar/
- Sector: Marketplaces
- Country: Turkey
- Total funding: unknown
- Cause of closure: Business model failed

## What did it do?

Arabulvar was a general e-commerce site and marketplace launched in Turkey in 2012 by Limango, part of Germany's Otto Group. Unlike Limango's private shopping model, it both sold products directly and allowed third-party sellers to open shops. It traded under the slogan "It's got everything", with categories ranging from clothing to cosmetics and from watches to toys.

## Why did it shut down?

No public reason was given for the closure. According to the farewell message published on the site, operations ended on 30 March 2015; on the same day, and in the same words, Limango, Otto Group's private shopping site, also ended its operations in Turkey. This timing suggests that the decision had less to do with a single site's performance than with the group's choice to wind up its e-commerce activities in Turkey; this is an interpretation. At its launch in 2012, Webrazzi had described Arabulvar as a new rival taking on established marketplaces such as Sahibinden.com, GittiGidiyor and Sanalpazar. The site's traffic, seller and turnover figures were never made public.

## The story

Germany's Otto Group had entered Turkey in 2009 with the private shopping site Limango. Limango quickly established itself among the market's leading players and launched sub-brands in verticals such as cosmetics and technology. The group's next step was a broader field: a marketplace where anyone could sell anything.

Webrazzi, the Turkish tech news site, had been hearing for some time that Limango was preparing a new e-commerce site. On 3 May 2012 it announced that the site had gone into a short test run and that its name was Arabulvar. Arabulvar would work with both a classic e-commerce and a marketplace model: Limango would sell listed products directly, and sellers who wished could open shops on the site. Webrazzi described the new site as a brand-new rival to marketplaces such as Sahibinden.com, GittiGidiyor, Sanalpazar and Yenicarsim. The farewell message the site later published gave its founding date as 14 April 2012.

Arabulvar stayed live for the next three years. According to internet archive records, in the early months of 2015 the site was still selling across categories ranging from clothing to mother-and-baby products and from computers to toys. However, figures such as traffic, number of sellers or turnover were never made public.

The end came on the same day as Limango's. On 30 March 2015 a message written in almost identical sentences was published on both sites. Arabulvar's message said that operations had regretfully been brought to an end and thanked users for their support since 14 April 2012. A 2017 round-up by Webrazzi of private shopping sites that had closed also noted that Otto Group had later shut down Arabulvar, which it had launched in 2012.

Arabulvar's story shows that the fate of a global group's local experiments often depends on that group's country strategy. When the group brought its e-commerce adventure in Turkey to an end, two sites closed on the same day.

## Lessons

- If you open a marketplace separate from your main brand, establish its own source of traffic and sellers from day one.
- Against established marketplaces, a new site that cannot bring sellers more orders is just one more shop window for them.
- If you are the local venture of a foreign group, know in advance what will happen to you when the group's country strategy changes.

## Sources

- [Arabulvar.com: a new e-commerce site and marketplace from Limango](https://webrazzi.com/2012/05/03/arabulvar/)
- [Arabulvar closure announcement, internet archive capture](https://web.archive.org/web/20150801022256/http://arabulvar.com/)
- [Private shopping sites that closed before Markafoni](https://webrazzi.com/2017/06/01/markafoni-kapanisi/)
- [Limango Turkey ends its operations](https://webrazzi.com/2015/03/30/limango-turkiyedeki-faaliyetlerine-son-verdi-son-dakika/)