KAR-AS gears up in e-trade and abroad

Accelerating its e-trade with its “Kargibi” brand, Kar-As is set to widen its network with “Deep Sleep” in abroad

Started with production of carcass springs two decades ago, Kar-As has been growing with its two brands now. Working on exports with “Deep Sleep” brand, the company has been growing with its E-trade business on the other hand. Pointing out that they opened their “Kargibi” brand to the world, Erdogan Aslan, Chairman of the Board of Kar-As commented that the mattress industry should have stable manufacturers and stable suppliers in order to be among the top countries of the industry. The interview with Aslan follows:

How long have you been serving the mattress industry?

Since 1995, Kar-as is producing bonnell springs needed by the furniture sector. We sell bonnell springs to the domestic market and abroad. By starting with the bonnell spring production, we have added a bunch of trademarks to Kar-as. One of them just started with mattress production in 2002. We keep it moving by producing adjustable beds that we export abroad with the brand of “Adoze”. By putting other company’s labels on the mattresses, we help their own production.

You started E-trade with “Kargibi” brand. What is the final situation of people’s buying mattresses online? Do the consumers prefer buying mattresses online or by going to stores?

In addition to Adoze, we produce pocket spring units with the trademark of Besttel located in Industrial Zone. “Besttel” exports %90 of its products. “Kargibi” is another trademark which is in the e-trade sector. At first, online trading was not a good choice for our customers. People were not trusting online trading. Day by day, with the improvement in technology, it is becoming more and more common. This makes us happier.

The last brand is called “Deep Sleep”. With this brand, we want to widen our network in foreign countries. When it comes to your other question, I can say that I was not very interested in opening an online trading website. But now as I see the fact that people like online trade, I become more interested. The reason why people like online trading is as follows: they are able to compare, they learn the quality difference with other com ments about the products, they do not waste time, and they have many options.

Can you furnish us with information about your recent investments?

In the last years, we have focused on improving the types of our machines. We are adding the new automatic machines to our production unit. As it is known, we hardly find workers with skills in our country. It is also seen that there is a decrease in the loyalty and ambition of the people applying for our company. This is the reason why we tend to be interested in the machines working automatically. We use those automatic machines for around 8 months and in the next July, the rest of our automatic machines will join in our production.

What would you say about sleep and sleep health? How should a healthy mattress be?

As you know the one third of human life is consumed on the mattresses. We believe that the decorations of our bedrooms such as the paint, light, temperature and appearance are important.

However, the comfort of our mattress that we sleep on is more important. This is what we pay more attention to. If we do not feel when we wake up in the morning, that means we have health problems or the mattress is not good. Being not good is the common problem of all mattresses. The interesting part of this is the fact that people do not understand the mattress is good. They believe that they have health problems just like everybody else. They do not even realize their back and cervical pains. They think that everybody has the same problems. In contrary, the customers sleeping on our mattresses lose all the pains they have. They tell us that they are not able to feel comfortable in the hotels which do not use our mattresses because our customers already know the comfort of our mattresses. They compare both of the mattresses and see the difference.

What do you think about the recent developments in the Turkish mattress industry? How do you rate the sector compared to other countries?

My suggestion is, before buying, customers should learn the quality of the fabric, microfiber and foam. They should read all of the certificates and using manual. I also want to mention that customers are our helpers. In this case, our customers in Europe are giving us the direction of what to produce. This is how we improve ourselves. Especially in our production unit every month we make new products with new designs.

I believe that Turkish companies are in the European market with their cheap products. The European customers want the Turkish companies to produce cheap products with good quality. Exporting Turkish companies are both in the European and Middle-Eastern markets. I cannot tell you what cheap prices will bring us. But, I believe that when we focus on prices and quality, the customers will return even if they leave us for a while. The three criteria are important:

1) Price

2) Quality

3) On time delivery.

The companies paying more attention to these three criteria do success in the long term. As you know, it is now easy to reach the data. Wherever you are in the world, it does not matter. You are able to get the information of the producers, sellers and where it is produced. This information gives us the direction of what we should focus more on. This is called “customer trust”. Everybody can produce. Everybody can sell. The most important is sustainability. This is what we producers have to be.

What final remarks would you like to mention?

I want to finally say that I strongly believe us have achieved the success with the three main principles in our companies that we celebrate the 20th year

1) The trust of our workers and their loyalty.

2) The saying is on the interior wall in the company, which is “Firstly customers, secondly ourselves.” We as a team have learned to apply this saying to business life.

3) We have not made our customers upset. There principles brought us today. We will celebrate many more years without losing our ambition.