Selling shoes in Turkey? A market entry strategy for three footwear makers
The clients were three Polish footwear manufacturers, each with a different range: leather, orthopaedic and casual shoes. Each was considering selling in Turkey and wanted to understand the market before looking for partners there.
Challenge
Turkey makes a lot of shoes itself: almost 100 million pairs of leather shoes alone in 2021. It also exports them to Europe, Poland included. A Polish manufacturer runs into strong local competition, Turkish standards and labelling rules, and a business culture where talks take time. Each company needed answers for its own product range.
What we did
We wrote a separate report for each company. We calculated production, sales, exports and imports from Turkish Statistical Institute data. We picked the ten largest local manufacturers and compared their ranges, communication channels and prices across five shoe categories. We described Turkish standards, labelling requirements and certification. The report ends with recommendations: entry mode, trade fairs and how to approach Turkish partners.
Result
Each company received a report of about 35 pages with a recommended way into the market. For companies of their size we recommended selling through a vetted local distributor or agent, with franchising and joint ventures described as further options. The report also lists footwear fairs in Istanbul, Antalya and Bursa where the companies can exhibit their brands.
Three companies from one industry got three different reports, because each sells different shoes. Only the market data was shared.