Estore

What did it do?

Estore was a general e-commerce site founded in Turkey in the early years of online shopping. Its range, which started with music, books and toys, gradually broadened to everything from electronics to white goods and from cameras to jewellery. After being sold to Çukurova Group, one of Turkey's large conglomerates, in 2006, it also opened a television shopping channel, Estore.tv, on Digiturk.

Why did it shut down?

According to a January 2009 report by Webrazzi, the Turkish tech news site, Estore, owned by Çukurova Group, could not survive the hard conditions of 2008; the same report said staff had not been paid salaries or severance because the company had declared bankruptcy. A 2017 round-up by Habertürk links the closure to a debt of 4.5 million TL, while a 2016 round-up by Turkishtime highlights mistakes in management and on the Estore.tv side. The fact that rival Hepsiburada kept growing over the same period suggested, according to Webrazzi, that the problem may have lain less in the market itself than in the company's management and supply side. Neither the company nor its executives made any public statement about the closure.

The story

Estore was live when online shopping in Turkey was still a curiosity. According to a 2016 round-up by Turkishtime, the site was founded in 1998; in an Internet Archive snapshot dated June 2000, Estore was selling music CDs by album and artist, books, toys, mobile phones and small household appliances, and offered flower delivery. At the bottom of the page was a 1999 copyright notice.

The site grew over the years and, according to Turkishtime, was for a time seen as the biggest rival to Hepsiburada, today one of Turkey's largest online retailers. According to the same round-up, Estore was sold to Çukurova Group in 2006. In an archive snapshot from January 2007 the range had broadened from white goods to jewellery and from computers to magazine subscriptions; the site had separate store sections for Apple and HP, a points system and a department called Estore TV. The group had also set up a television shopping channel called Estore.tv on Digiturk.

2008 was a hard year for Turkish e-commerce. That year Webrazzi reported that sites such as Tio, HemAlHemSat and Weblebi had made the news for bad reasons or had closed. Towards the end of the year similar news came for Estore. In January 2009 Webrazzi announced that even a site backed by Çukurova Group had been unable to survive. According to the report, staff had not been paid salaries or severance because the company had declared bankruptcy; former employees had started a blog and launched a legal fight over what they were owed. In the Internet Archive the store pages cannot be found from February 2009 onwards, and the home page stays blank for years.

The same Webrazzi piece drew an interesting comparison: over the same period Hepsiburada was announcing that its turnover had grown. To the author, this suggested the problem should be sought less in the market than in management problems at Estore and in the rival's strong supplier relationships. Turkishtime's 2016 round-up also attributed the closure to management mistakes and to errors made with Estore.tv. According to Habertürk's 2017 round-up, Estore closed because of a debt of 4.5 million TL. In February 2009 Webrazzi put Estore at the top of its list of e-commerce sites that had closed amid turmoil.

Estore's story shows that starting early is not an advantage in itself. One of the first to open up the market, the company fell behind rivals that later grew stronger when, despite the backing of a large group, it could not manage its costs and supply chain. This is an interpretation.

Lessons for founders

• Coming under the umbrella of a large group does not protect a company if its cash flow and supplier confidence are not healthy.
• Before opening a new sales channel, make sure the main channel is running profitably; expensive channels such as television wear down a weak structure even further.
• If things are going badly, talk to staff and suppliers early and openly; silence turns a closure into a crisis of trust.

Sources

1. A contradiction in e-commerce: Hepsiburada.com and estore.com.tr (in Turkish) (Webrazzi, 2009-01-05)
2. Which e-commerce sites have closed recently? (in Turkish) (Webrazzi, 2009-02-12)
3. 50 failed start-ups and 50 lessons from their mistakes (30–50) (in Turkish) (Turkishtime, 2016-05-23)
4. Turkish e-commerce sites that closed before Markafoni (in Turkish) (Habertürk, 2017-06-02)
5. estore.com.tr home page, Internet Archive snapshot (Internet Archive, 2000-06-21)
6. estore.com.tr home page, Internet Archive snapshot (Internet Archive, 2007-01-05)

This section is compiled from public sources (Wikidata, news archives and company announcements). Figures are given as they appear in those sources; unknown fields are left blank. If you spot a mistake in an entry, you can send us a correction.

Is something in this entry wrong? Request a correction → Method