A mixed picture

Exhibitor numbers were somewhat down on last year’s bookings, and the stream of visitors to the DIY & Home Improvement Suppliers Expo in Istanbul was reduced as well. Nevertheless, the verdict of many exhibitors on the second staging of this fair was not necessarily any more negative: many of them were happy with the quality of the visitors they saw. To a not insignificant degree this was because the fair organising company Media Force, which is part of the Erem Group, had succeeded in bringing the buyers of several major European DIY groups to the Turkish capital, even though they are not involved in the Turkish DIY market. Bricoalliance arrived with several members, Ace Hardware and Orgill, two wholesale organisations from America, were also there, while the European industry was re-presented by such as Maxeda, Intergamma, Bricorama, Byggmax and Senukai. One example of a visitor from the Middle East was Gulf Depot, a builders’ merchant from Saudi Arabia. Tekzen, a Turkish DIY chain, had its own stand at the fair in order to demonstrate how important it believes it is to have an industry event in one’s own country. Other domestic trading companies such as E7 and Altek were represented by buyers. The significance of the event was also underlined by the fact that John Herbert, general secretary of the European retail association EDRA, came to the opening. For, in recent times, Turkey is attracting attention in two respects: both as a procurement market and as a growth area for European DIY retailers. So it is no coincidence that Turkey will be one of the six countries that the European manufacturers’ association FEDIYMA has chosen for its next market survey. During his visit to the fair in Istanbul, the association’s general manager, Ralf Rahmede, gave expression there to the interest that exists within the industry in such a survey and in the country as well. For the first time the results of the study, commissioned from the market research company GfK, will be presented at the 2nd European Home Improvement Forum in Paris. Among the 75 exhibitors in Istanbul were big domestic companies with high export rates. Noticeable here is the proximity to markets that tend to be less often in the industry’s field of vision. Indeed, for quite a few Turkish manufacturers the neighbouring countries in the region are important target markets, along with America and Europe as well. Download: