Carpet sale in Turkey
by Ludwina Akbulut
Turkey is a beautiful country to visit. There are lots of ancient
historical places, a big range of beautiful landscapes and much more.
You can almost not avoid visiting a carpet shop and for a lot of tourists
this is their first encounter with handmade carpets and kilims.It is very
cozy to sit in a carpet shop, sipping tea surrounded by all the nice
colors and designs, and often the desire to have one of these pieces in
your own house is born.
In most carpet shops ‘decorative’ pieces are sold. It is difficult to
find good ‘collectable’ pieces.As long as the customer knows the
carpet he purchases is a decorative piece and not a piece of collection
there is no problem.
Last year was a bad ‘carpet’ season. Because of different reasons
there were very few sales. This year is even worse: almost no sales. If
things do not pick up soon this will have a big impact on the pieces
produced for sale in the country (mostly for tourists). Productions made
for export do not have the same problem.
Turkish carpet producers and dealers think the only way to sell something
is by keeping the prices as low as possible. The salary of the women
knotting carpets is already at the bottom. In regions where women can find
other work carpet knotting has already disappeared, and I am afraid this
tendency will go on more quickly.
So to keep prices low there is only one other factor involved: the price
of the material.
It is sad to see the difference in quality between pieces made some years
ago and today. And I am afraid of future productions.
Another thing I can see is that already a lot of carpets sold in Turkey
are imported handmade copies of Turkish carpets ‘made in China’.
As a dealer it becomes more and more difficult to find good pieces and
even much more difficult to sell them. There are so many pieces on the
market with the same ‘name’ and similar design but with different
quality that novice customers get confused.
We still hope the tourist season will pick up during the coming months,
but not to lose a big part of Turkish culture there should be a big change
in the ‘business’ AND in the buying behavior of the customer.
Ludwina Akbulut - September 5, 2003
Dekorativ
Carpets and Kilims
