SMEs will survive with e-commerce

A solidarity campaign called “We Stand by SMEs as E-Commerce” was launched in order to reduce the negative effects of coronavirus on the commercial activities of SMEs and to enable SMEs to benefit from the opportunities provided by e-commerce. Emphasizing that the Covid-19 pandemic shows the importance of adaptation to the digital economy, Minister of Commerce Pekcan said: “Those who can benefit from digitalization, information and communication technologies in both production and trade, have the chance to survive with relatively fewer problems today. We have also started to implement our “virtual commerce committee” and “virtual fair” practices, which we believe will be highly adopted in the future. With these innovative practices, new opportunities will be provided in the marketing of Turkish products.”

Expressing that there are important studies focused directly on e-commerce as the Ministry of Commerce, Pekcan stated that the Electronic Commerce Information System (ETBİS) is the leading one. Minister Pekcan continued as:

“Before ETBİS, we did not have a national measurement and evaluation system for e-commerce, which was a major deficiency. We have created an information platform with ETBİS that will share data on the trade. We will share the details in the coming days. We have created the Trust Stamp System in e-commerce in order to eliminate the concerns about security, privacy and service quality and to establish the reliability of e-commerce sites. The main purpose of our “We Stand by SMEs as E-Commerce” campaign is to introduce more SMEs to e-commerce and to promote the use of the internet and e-commerce more qualified. With this campaign, we want to be able to bring solutions to our small businesses that have marketing difficulties, to grow and institutionalize our SMEs thanks to e-commerce. Local producers can market their products efficiently thanks to e-commerce; we hope that they will gain added value.”