What to Consider When Building an E-Commerce Website in Turkey

The things to consider when building an e-commerce website fall into three groups: legal preparation (tax registration, ETBİS registration, distance selling and data protection documents), the sales infrastructure (payments, shipping, returns and stock flow) and findability (product pages, SEO and measurement). Design sits on top of these three; when it is the other way round, even the most attractive store stalls at the first order.

The legal and registration steps below apply to stores selling to consumers in Turkey. If you are a foreign brand planning a Turkish storefront, they are your starting list; the infrastructure, product page and SEO sections apply wherever you sell. The order follows what a business opening a store from scratch should check before going live.

What registrations do you need to open an online store in Turkey?

According to Turkey's Ministry of Trade, service providers engaged in e-commerce must register with the Electronic Commerce Information System (ETBİS) through e-Devlet, the government's online portal, before they start trading. To register, merchants enter their MERSİS number (the central trade registry number) and tax ID; tradespeople and craftsmen enter their national ID number and tax ID; and all of them enter the domain name or mobile app through which they will sell. Registered businesses also declare a registered electronic mail (KEP) address suitable for official notifications, the payment methods they offer and the types of products they sell.

In practice, this means registration cannot be completed without a tax registration, a working domain and a KEP address. Whether you set up as a sole trader or a company has different tax and liability consequences; make that decision with your accountant, together with your product and turnover expectations.

Your payment provider application also relies on these documents. A bank or payment institution will ask for your company and tax documents; get the exact list from the provider, because it varies between institutions.

Which legal texts and information must the site show?

Turkey's Distance Contracts Regulation requires consumers to be informed before they place an order. The pre-contractual information must include the product's main characteristics, the seller's name or trade name, MERSİS or tax ID number, contact details, the total price, payment and delivery terms and the right of withdrawal. The pre-contractual information form and the distance sales contract must be presented at the checkout step in a way that can be read and accepted.

Law No. 6563 on the Regulation of Electronic Commerce requires the site's identifying information to be easy to reach and up to date, the total amount payable to be clearly visible when the order is confirmed, and receipt of the order to be confirmed without delay. So the checkout summary screen and the order confirmation email should be planned as part of the design.

Every form that collects personal data needs a privacy notice under KVKK, Turkey's personal data protection law. If you want to send marketing emails or SMS, Law No. 6563 requires the recipient's prior consent; asking for it with a separate, unticked box on the sign-up form is the cleanest approach. We cover consent management in detail in our guide to permission-based marketing under KVKK.

How do return and delivery rules affect the site?

For sales of goods, consumers have the right to withdraw within 14 days of receiving the goods, without giving a reason. The seller must refund all payments collected, including delivery costs, within 14 days after the returned goods are handed to the carrier named in the pre-contractual information. The delivery time you commit to cannot exceed 30 days for sales of goods, except for items made to the customer's specifications.

Additional costs such as shipping are part of the pre-contractual information; under the regulation, if the consumer is not informed of these costs, they are not obliged to pay them. These rules show up in three places on the site: a realistic delivery time on the product page, a clear shipping fee before payment and a returns page where customers can easily start a return. The return code, the return carrier and the step at which the refund is made should be written together with operations. We explain how to automate shipping and returns in our e-commerce shipping integration guide.

What should you look for in a platform and payment setup?

Choose between a hosted (SaaS) platform, open-source software or a custom build based on your plan for the next two or three years, not on today's product count. Check for: ready integrations with Turkish virtual POS providers and payment institutions, an e-invoice and e-archive connection, carrier integrations, stock syncing with marketplaces, and the ability to export product, customer and order data if you move to another platform later. Our comparison of SaaS, open-source and custom e-commerce platforms goes through the three options.

The basic rule for payments is not to store card data on your own server. Having card data handled by a PCI DSS compliant payment provider and taking payments with 3D Secure reduces risk considerably. We explain the difference between a bank's virtual POS and a payment institution, and the integration steps, in our payment gateway integration guide.

How should product pages and categories be structured?

When visitors cannot find what they are looking for, they leave. Plan the category tree, filters and on-site search before you upload products. Grouping variants such as color and size under a single product simplifies both stock management and how the product appears in search.

Every piece of information needed for the decision should be visible at first glance on the product page: a clear product name, photos from several angles, stock status, the price including all taxes, an estimated delivery time and the return terms. If you show discounts, how the pre-discount price is determined is regulated in Turkey; we summarized the rules in force from 1 August 2026 in our article on Turkey's new e-commerce discount rules.

Pay attention to product reviews too. Under an amendment that took effect on 1 August 2026, Turkey's Regulation on Commercial Advertising and Unfair Commercial Practices requires that only people who bought the product be allowed to review it on the site, and that reviews stay published for at least one year without distinguishing between positive and negative ones. When choosing a review module, check whether it verifies purchases.

When should SEO and measurement be set up?

Before launch. The URL structure, category page copy and a unique title and description for each product should be settled before going live; every address you change later creates redirect work. Google says you can add product structured data to product pages, submit a product feed through Merchant Center, or do both. This can help your products appear more richly in search results with price and stock information.

Set up measurement from day one as well. If your analytics tool does not track add to cart, begin checkout and purchase as separate events, you cannot see which channel actually brings sales or at which step customers give up.

Pre-launch checklist

• Tax registration, KEP address and ETBİS registration are complete
• The pre-contractual information form, distance sales contract, KVKK privacy notice and returns policy are on the site
• The checkout summary shows the total amount, and the order confirmation email is sent automatically
• Payments go through a PCI DSS compliant provider with 3D Secure; card data is not stored on the site
• The shipping fee is clear before payment, and the delivery time is stated on the product page
• A return can be started in a few steps
• There is a separate consent box for marketing email and SMS
• The review module is open only to buyers
• URLs, product titles and structured data are ready; purchase events are tracked

If you want to plan your store with these steps in place, see our e-commerce service, or get in touch to discuss your situation.