Abstract
It is noteworthy that volumes of e-commerce usage are spread over the population of the world, and the amount of transactions is quite high. In this sense, Turkey's situation is different from other countries. Although the volume of internet usage is similar to that of the world, the volume of e-commerce transactions is quite low. However, there is a stable increase in the e-commerce usage in Turkey. Between 2016 and 2020, the average annual growth rate of e-commerce usage has grown by 31% across the country. Considering the great increase in the e-commerce usage in Turkey, this study aims to visualize spatial distribution of the share of e-commerce usage over the provinces of Turkey. Findings of the research point out that the e-commerce usage shows a heterogeneous spatial distribution across Turkey. Due to the low population, in particular provinces (such as Kayseri and Karabük in Central Anatolia, Aydın in Aegean Region, and Van in East Anatolia), there is an expanding distortion around these cities regarding the ratio of e-commerce usage.
It is noteworthy that both internet usage and e-commerce usage spread over the world and the amount of transactions is quite high (Turkish Informatics Industry Association, 2019). Turkey is one of the countries in which e-commerce usage has grown in size dramatically since 2019. However, e-commerce usage has a different growth rate than internet usage over the country. According to the records of Ministry of Commerce of Turkey, there is a stable increase in the e-commerce usage in Turkey and the average annual growth rate of e-commerce usage has grown by 31% between 2016 and 2020 (Ministry of Commerce of Republic of Turkey, 2020). Apart from these, the growth rate as well as category-based purchasing rates have shown a different pattern in 2020.
When it is compared with the same period of last year, Turkey's e-commerce volume in the first 6 months of the 2020 increased by 64% and the volume of total e-commerce market has reached 92 billion Turkish Lira (TL). The e-commerce market of Turkey had a size of 83.1 billion TL in 2019. Category-based purchasing rates of e-commerce also changed in 2020. The ratio of food, supermarket, household appliances, and baby stuffs has increased while accommodation, travel, and airway sales has decreased in 2020 (Turkish Industrialists and Business People Association, 2019).
This study aims to visualize spatial distribution of the share of e-commerce usage to the share of population over the provinces of Turkey. In this study, the e-commerce usage represents the size of online buying from virtual market places and new distribution intermediaries. There are ∼69,000 firms selling and marketing in the e-commerce environment in Turkey (Ministry of Commerce of Republic of Turkey, 2020).
Findings of the research point out that the e-commerce usage shows a heterogeneous spatial distribution across Turkey. Similar to the population sizes of provinces, the highest use of e-commerce is recorded at the Marmara Region (mostly in İstanbul) with 55.5%, Central Anatolia Region (mostly in Ankara) with 16.4%, and Aegean Region (mostly in İzmir) with 12.2%, respectively, in 2019 (Turkish Industrialists and Business People Association, 2019). By 2020, the first three largest metropolitan cities had 60% share of the total e-commerce usage that is distributed among İstanbul (47%), Ankara, (8%), and İzmir (5%) as Ministry of Commerce of Republic of Turkey promulgated (2020). Nevertheless, the ratio of the e-commerce usage to the population comes along with a spatially distinctive pattern (Figure 1).
The ratio of the share of e-commerce usage to the share of population in Turkey 2020.
The map (Figure 1), which is produced by cartogram method (Gastner and Newman, 2004), reveals that due to the low population, in particular provinces (such as Kayseri and Karabük in Central Anatolia, Aydın in Aegean Region, and Van in East Anatolia), there is an expanding distortion around these cities regarding the ratio of e-commerce usage, whereas the major metropolitan cities, except for Istanbul, are shrinking. Although the e-commerce usage is generally related with household income, logistic infrastructure, and so on (Turkish Industrialists and Business People Association, 2019; Turkish Statistical Institute, 2020), the map is unlikely to represent these indicators (Figure 1). The map may lead further examination in electronic market research studies and economic geography.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
