Evimister

What did it do?

Evimister was a home-goods e-commerce site launched in Turkey by Rocket Internet in November 2011. It sold a wide range of products, from decor items to home electronics. It quickly became one of Rocket's most visited sites in Turkey.

Why did it shut down?

Evimister's traffic grew rapidly, but the site's future depended on Rocket Internet's decision about Turkey. On 17 August 2012 Rocket decided to close its Turkish operation entirely, and the sites stopped buying new products and began running down their stock. Webrazzi, the Turkish tech news site, reported hearing that some groups were interested in buying Evimister, but no report of a sale actually taking place has been found. Rocket gave no reason; writing as a guest author on Webrazzi, Nurettin Özdoğan argued that the vertical e-commerce model did not suit the campaign-driven Turkish market and that profit margins were low. Crowded competition in the home category may also have played a part: Evim.net, and even Rocket's own site Westwing, were targeting the same customers.

The story

Rocket Internet made a rapid entry into Turkey in the second half of 2011, setting up seven e-commerce companies in about six months. Evimister was one of them. According to a Webrazzi feature from May 2012, the site went live in November 2011 and sold a wide range of products, from home decor to home electronics.

The growth was impressive. According to Google Ad Planner data, Evimister reached 570,000 unique monthly visitors within a few months, with visitor numbers up 414 per cent in the previous three months; it ranked 371st in Turkey on Alexa. But the category was crowded. Webrazzi named Evim.net, with 700,000 monthly visitors, as the strongest rival; Evmanya, acquired by Doğan Online, and Dekoreko, backed by e-tohum, were also in the same space. On top of that, Rocket's own private shopping site Westwing also sold home decor.

On 17 August 2012 Webrazzi announced that Rocket Internet was closing its Turkish operation. According to the report, Rocket's sites would from then on only sell the stock they had, make no new purchases and then close. The same report also mentioned hearing that a few groups were interested in buying Sporena and Evimister. In early September the Teknokulis page of the daily Sabah wrote that customer complaints that Evimister, Sporena and Zidaya had closed had turned out to be true.

No report of a sale actually taking place has been found. In a 2017 round-up of e-commerce sites that had closed, Habertürk counted Evimister among the companies that shut after Rocket Internet's withdrawal from Turkey. Years later, Hürriyet columnist Sefer Levent also recalled that Rocket had sold the products in its warehouses to rival sites. Evimister remains a brief experiment in which traffic growth alone was not enough to extend a company's life.

Lessons for founders

• If you are competing in a crowded category with another company owned by the same investor, you may not be the priority when portfolio decisions are made.
• Rapid traffic growth does not guarantee a buyer; a saleable company must also show a path to profitability.
• In inventory-based e-commerce, an exit plan must also cover how the stock in the warehouse will be cleared.

Sources

1. A look at the Turkish operations of Rocket Internet, the lord of the clones [Feature] (in Turkish) (Webrazzi, 2012-05-08)
2. Rocket Internet is closing its Turkish operation! [Breaking] (in Turkish) (Webrazzi, 2012-08-17)
3. Why did Rocket Internet leave Turkey? (in Turkish) (Webrazzi, 2012-08-19)
4. E-commerce site Zidaya.com has been shut down (in Turkish) (Sabah Teknokulis, 2012-09-05)
5. The clone brothers at work (in Turkish) (Hürriyet, 2015-05-07)
6. Turkish e-commerce sites that closed before Markafoni: why did online shopping sites close? (in Turkish) (Habertürk, 2017-06-02)

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