Sayat Delice, Manager, Retail Consultancy & Street Leasing, Turkey

1) How long have you been in retail?
I’m working in retail for 7 years ranging from merchandising to business development. Since 2009 I'm in charge of Tenant Representation and Street Leasing Departments in JLL Turkey.

2) What changes have you experienced in this time?
From the boom period 2005 – 2008, to the global downturn in 2009, retailers followed the trend to open stores no matter what the commercial conditions were. 2009 stabilized the retail boom and draw a straight line downwards to a correction of the retail market in Turkey.

All these ups and downs helped the market to get developed and organized both commercially and operationally.

3) What is the most exciting thing about working in retail at the moment?
Retail is detail and all these details that we deal during our daily operations keep us up to date and dynamic all the time. Even now when retailers are working in tight budgets and decisions are being taken so slow, there are multiple availabilities of risks and opportunities, we need to follow which keep business alive.

4) How do you think consumer demands/expectations are changing?
We have been taught that 4Ps of marketing was shifting to 4Cs of marketing during the years in university. So it's not something new to mention the common phrase of "consumer is the king".

People are so vulnerable to consume and now it is a world of choices. The most important thing for retailers is to follow the trends and serve consumers at their desired way. Retailers need to be innovative and serve consumers’ customized expectations

5) What’s the most important issue facing retail over the next 10 years?
Retailers need to understand that the business of retail has shifted drastically being just the business of shop keeping to a more complex operation where there is involvement of marketing, trends, media, globalization, speed, architecture, real estate, and risk management.  In the next 10 years consumers will be looking for more innovative concepts. There will be the challenge of online shopping more and other ways of shopping like Pop-up stores. There will be many renovation and redevelopment projects at the low cost areas of the cities.