Decor Mart Nisan 2021

Switching to e-trade by Festival Halı
Cebrail Şahin, the GM at Festival Halı: “This period of time accompanied
with a virus proved that we should be very resilient at e-trade just as we
open stores at regular marketplaces.”
Festival Halı, one of the distinguished carpet brands
in Turkey, now began to reap what they sowed with
investments they made before the pandemic began
to hit. Cebrail Şahin, the GM of the brand, which was
included in the scope of the ‘Turquality Brand Support
Program’ in 2019, said they attained a large sum of
useful data concerning consumer habits, thanks to
their earlier investments. Adding that they continue
to sell their products through websites and e-trade
marketplaces in the regions where they have actively
been involved, Şahin gave more information about
what they would be up to in the upcoming period. He
also commented on 2020.
How could Festival Halı manage to go through such a
challenging pandemic period? Would let us know the
updates?
Covid-19 changed the trends, management of production
and the direction of the markets. The fact that the
pandemic did not start to hit all the countries equally
at the same time, hitting Far East countries first and
then others, reflected upon us positively, so to speak,
as Festival Halı has been involved in several regions.
Of course, this has also had its adverse impacts,
too. First off, our sales volume in the market places
changed dramatically. While our sales in China and
its peripherals stopped, we proceeded with our sales
in countries like Indonesia and Malaysia by the sixth
month of 2020. Later on, we made serious moves in
the US and around. The change of the markets helped
us to turn our eyes to regions that might be active for
our industry.
Later, came the period when the effects of the pandemic
began to be diminishing, which surprisingly ended
up in boom of needs. However, the seasons have also
switched. Normally, the summer months would be
off-peak for the carpet industry. In contrast, we had
satisfactory sales during the summer of 2020. Normally,
our sales rates used to be relatively low in the
summer. In 2020, however, we realized almost 75%
of our total sales during summer months. Later, with
the curfews in effect through September and October,
e-trade was surged in by consumers. The fact that
consumers preferred to use their purchasing power
for primarily food and clothing, of which they were
mostly in need, caused a contraction in our sector
and the entire sector feels that it’s not been gotten
rid of yet. In addition, rising raw material costs at the
beginning of 2021 negatively affected production, thus
weakened the competitive power of players. To be
honest, there were times when we had to make tough
decisions like termination of production. All in all,
there is one thing we clearly see: We should be very
resilient at e-trade just as we open stores at regular
marketplaces.
What are your comments about Saudi Arabia and the
US where you have close business dealings? How do
you think your products are likely to be responded to
at those markets?
The US is a country which has a significant growth
potential for carpet industry. Huge demands are
already being witnessed. As Festival Halı and the city
of Gaziantep, we think that this period of time will not
damage the sales much, although it is acceptable that
it may have minor effects on our sector.
As for the Saudi market, our investments are huge,
there; we have stores and warehouses. The unpleasant
incidents that occurred simply due to political
reasons were quite worrisome for us. We predict this
will not be gotten rid of soon as there is an unoffici-
48 DECOR • March - April 2021