Hepsiburada - Best User Experience

Company: Hepsiburada, Istanbul TURKEY
Entry Submitted By: Unite EDELMAN Istanbul
Company Description: Hepsiburada, As the leading e-commerce platform of Turkey & surrounding region, with 50 million products in over 40 categories, we meet 200+ million monthly visitors. Focusing on transformative & constructive power of technology, social development, entrepreneurship & innovation we lead the development of the online-shopping industry with our marketplace model.
Nomination Category: Website Specialty Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Best User Experience

Nomination Title: Hepsiburada 'Easy Return by Appointment at Home’

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As Hepsiburada, the leading e-commerce platform of Turkey and the surrounding region, we provide 50 million products in over 40 categories to our customers. We strive to meet the needs of 200+ million monthly visitors with our team connecting the Silicon Valley mindset with Grand Bazaar culture and blending data and experience.

As Hepsiburada of Turkey, we lead the development of the online shopping industry with our marketplace model that brings together tens of thousands of SMEs, with the region’s largest Intelligent Operation Centre, and with our state-of-the-art R&D Centre where we focus on the technological innovations to support improvement of the sector. With a customer experience-centric approach, we co-operate and co-invest in projects with leading companies in their respective fields. We continue to grow together with all our stakeholders through innovation and entrepreneurial spirit embedded in our DNA by our founder and chairwoman Hanzade Doğan, and spearhead the digital transformation in Turkey.

We are building a giant ecosystem that benefits all our stakeholders, together with our various companies and subsidiaries such as Hepsijet, our delivery company bringing an innovative perspective to the logistics industry, Hepsipay, our digital payment services provider; Hepsiexpress offering grocery delivery directly to the customer door at their desired times; HepsiAd, our advertisement platform for brands; Hepsiglobal, providing the opportunity to become a global player through e-export and many more to our stakeholders…

As a tech company, we focus on the transformative and constructive power of technology and contribute to social development, entrepreneurship, and innovation with our CSR initiatives. In this respect, through our ‘Technology Empowerment for Women Entrepreneurs’ program launched in May 2017.

Founded in 1998 and operating under the Hepsiburada brand since 2001, we are proud to become the largest e-commerce platform in Turkey and the surrounding region. We continue our investments and strive to achieve our goal to become the largest tech company ecosystem across a wide range of geographic area from the east of India to the west of Germany and to serve 1 billion prospective customers located in destinations within four hour flight from Istanbul, and we would like to thank our customers for trusting and supporting us on our journey.

The pandemic increased the demand for e-commerce globally. The share of e-commerce raised by 26,9% in retail sector globally while Turkey’s e-commerce volume increased by 66%. With increasing demand to online shopping in line with customer habits&expectations, customer satisfaction parameters lived a decrease globally in e-commerce sector. At this period,as Hepsiburada the leading e-commerce platform of Turkey, despite e-commerce trends, we achieved a severe increase in our overall customer satisfaction which is 17% thanks to technological innovations developed by entrepreneurial spirit with our holistic customer experience-centric approach. During the pandemic, as a tech company focusing on the constructive potential of technology we prioritized the wellbeing of our stakeholders. The products must be delivered to the cargo units in the e-commerce return process, which can be a challenging process for consumers due to hygienic concerns.

Finally, we provided the 'Easy Return by Appointment at Home' option which enables our customers to return on time of their choices without leaving their homes. Hepsijet brings an innovative perspective to the logistics industry, ensures that all cargo processes are completed with superior quality. Customers may easily schedule a return appointment by selecting the desired date and address on the Hepsiburada Website/App.

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We launched our “Easy Return by Appointment at Home” project in just two months during the pandemic to improve customer experience in return processes. We accelerated the project's release with the agreements we made with Hepsijet and AGT in order to serve customers and make their lives easier. During the Black Friday and Legend Friday times, we promoted the project through promotional campaigns with Cem Yılmaz, one of Turkey's most well-known names. In addition, by including our project in our Mother's Day advertisements, we increased brand and service awareness.

Hepsiburada has implemented Turkey's first and only self-service return option from address with an appointment. This service is delivered in four steps. First, customers make an appointment by entering their return date and address into the Hepsiburada website or App. Second, delivery companies notify consumers until the return is received. Then, customers give the product with the shipping code to the cargo representative who arrives at the address on the scheduled date. Finally, consumers may use the Hepsiburada App to monitor the process from return to delivery to the vendor.

Our ecosystem, which encompasses the entire customer experience, allowed the "Easy Return by Appointment at Home" service to be introduced. Since we did not want to undermine our service, we decided to offer this service through our previously opened Hepsijet delivery system. As we always move forward based on customer feedback, our customers' satisfaction with Hepsijet has led us to this internal collaboration. We also supported this process by collaborating with AGT to manage operational processes. Internal partnerships with our teams including Customer Service, Hepsiburada Delivery, Technology, and Customer Experience worked to better understand the customer and respond to their needs. We assisted merchants and provided innovative services to the e-commerce sector during the project development process.

We collaborated with Cem Yılmaz, one of Turkey's most famous celebrities, by incorporating him into our advertisement campaign. We made our campaign publicized via social media and the press. Despite the difficult circumstances caused by the pandemic, our creative team found ways to communicate our products and services to our consumers in the most accurate manner.

The "'Easy Return by Appointment at Home" service is an advancement that will impact the future of e-commerce for both businesses and consumers. Based on the NPS detractor feedback from 2020, customers who have problems with returns decreased by 42% in the first quarter of 2021. Also, 35% decrease was achieved in complaints received through customer services regarding the return shipment process in 2020. Customers were dissatisfied with the return procedures, and it was discovered that the satisfaction with return with an appointment was 32% better than the regular return process, which requires the customer to visit a cargo branch office. We saved 10.000+ hours of time of our customers spent on going and coming back from the branch office between November and March. We also conducted a customer satisfaction call with 400 people; 96% of stated they were satisfied with return with appointment service, 95% of people said that they are satisfied with the shipping company which they made the return with and 98,3% of people stated that they would prefer the service again.