tasit.com is a website enabling car dealers and individual users to sell or buy second hand vehicles without any agent and it is obvious even at first glance that the website will make a name for itself in the near future.

It is difficult to sell online, however it is more difficult to mediate a sale. Websites defining themselves as only a mediator are condemned to fail in the beginning when they are involved into a sector they do not well. Birol Kabakoğlu, one of the founders of tasit.com is a person who had run an auto gallery in Germany previously and tasit.com project was probably appeared when he was seeking solution for difficulties he had while he was introducing cars in the gallery in those days.

Many people misthink that it is possible to conduct business on Internet just by purchasing a “10 USD” domain name. Unfortunately, it is not that easy. When we review successful Internet projects, we see that there are experienced, vision holder entrepreneurs behind project who know sector well.

Though vehicle sales-purchases are one of the main factors of economy, the sector is not very active in Internet yet. As a matter of course, there will always be mediators in real life no matter how much Internet and auto galleries are improved. Indeed, it is not easy to deal with many procedures and people you do not know on your own when you want to sell your car and/or buy a new car. As the income model of tasit.com is based on selling corporate subscription to auto galleries which are about 70.000 in Turkey, individual users are not forgetten to sell their cars by free subscription to the website.

Let’s face it; it will not be easy to sell your car without using particular “featured” aspects of your car. tasit.com helps its users to feature their cars by acceptable prices compared with its opponents. Surely, it is aimed to increase brand recognition rather than creating profit by activities of individual users on the website. Otherwise, focusing on individual users by such an initiative can not even be a matter of discussion.

The most significant factor leading an Internet project to the success is certainly the brand recognition. Even though the domain name costs 10 USD as we mentioned above, the catchy domain name of tasit.com (tasit means ‘vehicle’ in Turkish) cost much for initiative owners. As initiative owners notice that starting out with a generic domain name will quickly increase the initiative, they waited for tasit.com for a long time and purchased it when it decreased to a reasonable price.

The increase of brand recognition is important not only for making gallery owners to subscribe to the website but also for making people to visit the website who consider buying a car. Gallery owners keep being a member in the website as long as they get find clients over the website. Thus, tasit.com gives importance to studies made on recognition.

Working with a celebrity is very beneficial for brands. Müslüm Gürses (a Turkish arabesque singer who was very popular years ago) is a well-known name in Turkey even he does not have his previous popularity and charisma. If it is considered that men are more interested in vehicle sales-purchases, choosing Müslüm Gürses is a smart move.

Of course, working with a celebrity has high costs. Thus, we can not see such aggressive moves in Internet projects much. If it is announced well, entertaining shootings made with Müslüm Gürses will introduce tasit.com in Internet rapidly and many people deciding to buy a car and/or making market researches may be aware of tasit.com instead of institutional clients.

Word of mouth is an important concept for Tasit.com.  Thus, the website gives credit (5 TL worth) for each friend you invite. We all know that people do not think about it too much when such promotions are offered. However, if more realistic prizes are offered, people may make more effort for inviting their friends. For instance, a member invited the most friends in a month may win a real gift.

Since it is very hard to make a schematic or optional difference in the sector of Tasit.com, different ways are followed to keep the growth. tasit.com making direct sales to auto galleries by field sale representatives gained 300 institutional members in a short time. Of course, they will get the advantages of WoMM soon since their sector is one of the fields benefiting from the word of mouth. An auto gallery owner knows at least 5-10 colleagues. In a short time, other galleries will willingly subscribe to the website in a short time without being encouraged by a field sale representative.

Another feature of tasit.com is 50% discount for new gallery owners to subscribe to the website. I researched other rival websites since I do not know the sector well and I see that tasit.com announced itself as “the cheapest” website in the sector. Attractive price policy in rising period is surely an important factor for getting new institutional members. 1 month free trial option offered to institutional members by Tasit.com is really a tempting and appropriate application.

What can be done in the future?

Tasit.com has a good work plan and it is prepared as it is able to fill an important gap in the sector. The design of the website needs to be improved and its software needs to be reinforced. Projects at such scales can not be established easily, we have no doubt that its deficiencies will be met soon.

The thing that should be done for now is perhaps to announce the system to people as far as possible. Effective social media usage and viral spreading are needed for that purpose. It may be possible to draw target visitors to the website by arranging various promotion campaigns when conducting introduction activities. Even though there is a Facebook page for the website, we can say that Tasit.com can not use social media efficiently.

To the best of our knowledge, Çağlar Erol, one of the founders of Tasit.com is also the owner of EnUygun.com. In a near future, various opportunities will be offered to members of both websites by establishing an integrated system on two websites. In tasit.com, for example, auto loan or insurance calculations can be performed over the website. (*Fixed)

Above all, even though tasit.com picks institutional membership sales as income model for itself, the real success will be getting a share of the cake of automotive market. Automotive sector which was among 10 sectors giving advertisement most in first eight months of 2009 became the sector which reduced its advertisement expenditures most. If it is considered that advertisement expenditures are directed to Internet due to the reduction in the sector, it can be understood easily how important project tasit.com is.