# Pakette (2011 – 2013)

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

## What did it do?

Pakette, a Turkish online shop, sold a single, different discounted product every day. The home page showed the products from the last three days, and users who added all three to their basket paid no shipping fee. Over time it also put previously sold products back on sale and positioned itself as a store of curated products.

## Why did it shut down?

Pakette announced with a short note on its website that it had stopped selling on 11 August 2013, but gave no reason. According to a 2016 round-up by the Turkish business magazine Turkishtime, the main reasons for its failure were that the one-product-a-day format had already been tried in Turkey without success, and that the products on sale were chosen less to meet a genuine need than as things people would not miss if they did not buy them. When it covered the launch in 2011, Webrazzi had also pointed out that keeping a start-up alive without capital, on low margins and low sales volumes, would not be easy. It could be argued that shipping and advertising costs ate into the profit on small, low-value orders; this is an interpretation.

## The story

In 2011, flash-sale and private shopping sites were booming in Turkey. A team of four decided to reinterpret a format that had been tried before without success: one product a day. According to a Webrazzi report from October 2011, the idea took shape in 2010, and the team spent ten months on everything from supplier and market research to the software. Pakette went live in mid-May 2011 and opened to everyone after a short live test.

What set the model apart was small but clever. The site sold a different discounted product every day and showed the products from the last three days together on the home page. Users who put all three into their package paid no shipping fee. As co-founder Soner Eker told Webrazzi, the team used only its own capital and, to keep costs down, even handled the trademark application and company registration itself. Sales were low in the first month; in the following months orders rose with advertising and email marketing. Being able to add older products still in stock to the package let some users build baskets of more than ten items.

Internet Archive records show that throughout 2012 Pakette sold small, cheap products ranging from kitchen utensils to LED torches. In 2013 the site began presenting itself as a store of curated products. But a snapshot from October 2013 shows a short note at the very top of the home page: Pakette had stopped selling as of 11 August 2013. In 2014 snapshots the note had been updated to say that sales had ended.

The company gave no reason for the closure. Turkishtime's 2016 round-up cited the fact that the one-product format had already been tried without success, and the choice of products that met no genuine need, as the main reasons for its failure. The same round-up said Pakette closed within a year, but the site's own announcement shows it stayed online for roughly two years.

Pakette's story is a reminder that careful execution cannot make up for weak demand. The team cut costs meticulously and took care over its product images, but the one-product-a-day format never tapped into a need strong enough to bring users back every day. This is an interpretation.

## Lessons

- In a one-product-a-day format, product selection is everything; people will not visit every day for things they do not need.
- If you sell low-priced products, work out shipping and customer acquisition costs per order; a free shipping offer can wipe out your margin on its own.
- If you started with your own money, decide early whether growth will need outside funding; low-margin models cannot finance themselves for long.

## Sources

- [pakette.com closure notice, Internet Archive snapshot](https://web.archive.org/web/20131003130901/http://pakette.com/)
- [50 failed start-ups and 50 lessons from their mistakes (15–30)](https://turkishtimedergi.com/dijital-girisim/50-basarisiz-startup-ve-hatalarindan-cikarilacak-50-ders-15-30/)
- [Pakette.com: a one-product-a-day site with a difference](https://webrazzi.com/2011/10/10/pakette-com)
- [pakette.com home page, Internet Archive snapshot](https://web.archive.org/web/20140601220335/http://pakette.com/)