HAT FALLEN…

 

As every year, Marble İzmir was prepared in a festive atmosphere. With new hopes, our companies spared no expense and prepared their booths brightly despite the economic difficulties and the more than usual stagnation of the market. The idea of opening the season with expectations with Marble İzmir, which has become a tradition, brought along question marks with the variety and number of visitors that fell short of expectations. As the poet said, “It was like death, but no one died.”

In the post-Covid period, the number of Chinese visitors continued to decline. In addition to this, our eyes searched for familiar faces from India and various European countries. Throughout the fair, we experienced the feeling of missing a little bit of everything from every nation. A bitter taste that could not be named and the dream of “we will look at the next matches” remained after the fair. Somewhere something was going wrong, somewhere there was a big calculation in the combination of small reasons that we could not articulate. But was it always the play of foreign powers (!)?

Samuel Beckett wrote the famous play “Waiting for Godot” in 1952. The 2 main characters of the play wait for an imaginary character named Godot for 2 acts. The act of waiting becomes such an essential verb that they become unable to do anything else. The process of waiting for Godot turns into a complete inaction. Unfortunately, the Turkish marble industry seems to be in the process of waiting for its own Godot. Inertia seems to envelop our soul. It is as if we are expecting different new beautiful results by repeating the same things. We are trying to carry our existence into the future by multiplying the quarries of similar stones, identifying with each other and putting ourselves into certain molds, repeating our presentation, albeit with new make-up. Running from wagon to wagon on a very slow moving train is not a solution for moving forward.

With the hat in front of us, should we think about how we can speed up the train?

If you don’t know what the problem is, you can’t figure out how to solve it. So I guess we need to take the needle in our hands and like an acupuncturist, we need to stick the needle into our pain points, the possible source of the problem.

For those who look at life through rose-colored glasses and are satisfied with the current situation, the next part of the article may be a waste of time. In my personal observation, I will address some points that we, the stakeholders of the sector, should think about.

1. Sameness

As Stone World magazine, we have personally witnessed many fairs so far this year. Unfortunately, as Turkish natural stone sector producers, there are certain standards and molds that we have established in product display and presentation. We display our products well in 2 dimensions. But unfortunately, we have started to lag behind in making breakthroughs in the spirit of the time. Presentations that will carry Natural Stone to 3 dimensions will make a difference.

In addition to the presentation, the fact that we have been offering gray-dominated products to the market for a long time makes the old saying “Türkiye has the highest variety of stones in the world” come to naught unfortunately. While diversity is increasing in other countries that are just starting to rise, we have started to undermine the promise of a single country natural stone brand that we have maintained for years. Branding requires continuity.

2. Failure to Regenerate

We are stuck in certain markets, certain product ranges and forms. As long as we are passive, increasing or decreasing trade volume according to the economic and political situation of the world, as long as we read the world and the course of events in the form of looking for an excuse for the course of events, stagnation and regression will unfortunately continue.  If we want to exist, we have to establish a game.

It is not possible to provide added value by keeping the stones used in the booth the previous year in the vault for a year and presenting them in the same place in the same way. Why should a visitor spend time, money and effort to see the same thing?

3. Failure to maintain attractiveness

In the past, coming to Marble İzmir and Türkiye used to arouse excitement among foreign and local visitors. The most obvious sign of the loss of attraction is that people prefer to go to other countries and other fairs when there are different alternatives within the same time frame. The distance of the fair from the city center prevented visitors from socializing easily in the evenings. Wherever you go in the world, fairs, customer visits and business meetings are also a way for natural stonemasons to socialize and enjoy the city they are visiting along with their work. We are people who socialize at work. Unfortunately, moving away from the center has also damaged this and reduced people’s interest. Arrangements that allow visitors to experience the city more during the fair period can stimulate interest.

4. Cost increases

Unfortunately, there is a certain economic instability, volatility, supply chains breaking down, etc. all over the world. In some competitor countries that increased their product prices in the past years, prices have started to come back. In contrast to this, due to the economic conditions of our country, our low-efficiency-high-cost quarry operation style, fees that increase costs in quarry operation, energy costs, inflation, increasing labor wages, etc., we have started to remain expensive as a country in this competition with the increase in costs and low exchange rates.

5. Unregulated Marketing

In such times when the world is shifting, as the pie shrinks, a stable continuity in the marketing policies of our companies cannot be realized. As soon as we feel a stir in any product, the number of producers of that stone suddenly starts to mushroom. Factories and plate warehouses invest in that product. In a short time, the product, which falls into a spiral of desperate competition, starts to decline in the market. Investing in a new, different stone, buying and polishing it, and making it gain a place in the market is an arduous and time-consuming process. And we like the easy way. But what happens to the sector. We do not realize that after a while there will be no more “EASY”.

7. Loss of Curiosity/Additive Value

Can foreign traders, fabricators and installers who buy Turkish stones make a profit from our stones? Buying stones from here and processing them into projects is a big effort that requires time. Why should a company bear the stock cost, promotional effort and financing of any stone? Why would they invest in a product that is accessible to everyone everywhere at any time, with low profitability and high competition? As the market shrinks in the world, companies first try to get rid of their idle stock and costs. The sector starts to hit each other with a domino effect.

For example, the use of cheap stones from Egypt in the earthquake zone triggers producers in the region to move to other cities. Competition moves to the whole domestic market.

Or beiges and grays, which we have been selling to China in tons for years, are being offered to projects very cheaply in the Middle East market. Chinese companies are trying to melt the stock, which is swelling in their hands and decreasing in value, almost at cost. We have to compete with our own stones. The cost of producing a lot of the same stone and distributing it everywhere was going to be faced one day, I think that day is today.

As a sector, we need to increase our product diversity, expand the market by investing in different products, adopt a more prescriptive, customer-protective perspective in product sales and distribution, and regain the interest and curiosity we have lost through principled marketing.

I can almost hear you saying, “We have stuck the stick in the sector, but isn’t there something wrong with the Fair Organization?” Of course, we are all parts of a whole and there are deficiencies there too. If we summarize under certain headings:

1. Timing.

The fact that the fair has been held at the wrong times in recent years, either due to force majeure (Ramadan, etc.) or due to poor reading of world markets, has had a serious impact on the decrease in foreign visitors, especially this year.

2. Location/Settlement Plan

When moving to the new fairground, there was always hope for a more organized exhibition area and organization. Unfortunately, many unplanned structures such as the step-like hall structuring, the difficulty of transition between each other, the awkward distance between the block area and the halls, and many other unplanned structures prevent visitors from visiting the fair efficiently.

An effective showcase change can be achieved with small touches such as increasing the transition points between the halls, creating a block display area for the companies that have a stand in that hall in the areas used as parking lots behind each hall, and allocating the area used as a parking lot opposite the main entrance of the fair as a block area for companies that do not have a stand and will display products in the block area (the parking lot area located here can be moved to the existing block area).

3. Detaching the fair from the city

Fair visitors should not only come to the fair to see stones. The fair organization should also plan organizations that encourage our foreign guests to experience the city and they should leave with a pleasant taste in their minds from the time they spend here. In this way, memories that will encourage them to come back again and the thought of repeating the good times they had will definitely be effective in their decision-making when planning their visit to the fair next year. Perhaps, in cooperation with the Metropolitan Municipality, a Natural Stone Festival can even be organized in İzmir during the fair period.

4. Self-Repetition

Marble İzmir has started to repeat itself with its layout and routine organization. It feels as if everything is the same as the previous year, moving away from innovation… It seems that customer incentives from new markets should be emphasized and the layout of the fair should be renewed.

Fairs have increased in the world. Social media is used more effectively in promotion. It is now easier to access any product and information. Falling behind in marketing among alternatives is one of the important reasons for the stagnation in the sector and the regression of exhibition organization.

We need to stop expecting different results by repeating what has already been done. We should not wait for Godot. Shouldn’t we get up and go to Godot if necessary?