By Tuba Sahin
ANKARA (AA) - The sales of electrical household appliances boomed in Turkey last year amid the coronavirus pandemic as people followed stay-at-home orders with lockdown and social distancing measures.
Turkey saw more than a 300%-increase in domestic sales of electrical household appliances such as electronic bread makers, blow dryers, shaving sets, yoghurt makers and scales, Mesut Oksuz, the head of the Turkish Houseware Association (Zucder), told Anadolu Agency.
Personal care and kitchen appliances were the most popular items of last year, he said.
Forced to stay at home, people took up new hobbies such as baking bread.
With hairdressers and spas closed, people began buying self-grooming personal care items.
Noting that the sales shifted toward online platforms, Oksuz said, companies struggled initially to meet the rising demand.
"We solved the supply issue in a short time which was occurred by disruptions in imports," he noted.
On the overseas sales side, Oksuz said Turkey's electrical household appliances sector generated $831 million in export revenues last year.
Turkey is the 12th largest electrical household appliances exporter globally and 40th largest importer, he added.
"This shows the power of domestic production as the sector has registered more than $600 million of foreign trade surplus since 2008," he said, adding the figure rose to $720 million in 2020.
While Turkey's electrical household appliances exports remained stable in 2019 compared to a year ago, it fell 16% year-on-year in 2020.
Vacuum cleaners, shaving, hair cutting and epilation devices, irons, hairdryers and water heaters garnered great demand from abroad last year, Oksuz said.
Stressing that Turkish appliances manufacturers have a wide export market of 170 countries, Oksuz said the UK, France, Germany, Russia, Italy, Poland, Greece, Netherlands, Spain and Romania were the top recipients of Turkey-made electrical appliances.
Touching on the sector's expectations for the coming years, he pointed out the necessity of removing the tax burden on electric appliances to spur domestic consumer demand.
"Special Consumption Tax on electrical household appliances personal care and household appliances should be lifted as their usage is compulsory in daily life and they cannot be considered as luxury," Oksuz noted.
-Healthy diet boosts electric lunchbox sales
Murat Kolbasi, the CEO of electronic home appliances company Arzum, said as people became more interested in a healthy diet amid virus concerns, demand for products that support nutrition boomed.
Especially as the country lifted the strict social distancing and isolation measures implemented during the first half of last year, the company's new generation electrical lunch-boxes were sold like hot cake.
"Those who continue going to their offices showed a great interest in our electric lunchbox Foodie, which is a first in Turkey. It became the star of this period," Kolbasi noted.
The lunchbox comes with a mechanism to heat food on the go.
Technologies and designs that save time and offer convenience have now become a necessity, not a luxury, he noted.
Even if the pandemic is over, a healthy diet will become the routine of our lives, Kolbasi said.