CSY Marine, which was established in 2011, has reached the potential to supply all kinds of products for boats with its 600 square meter store warehouse, sales office in Viaport Marina and internet store, as well as its textile products manufacturing. The basis of this rapid and solid growth lies in the understanding of providing quality service at affordable prices.
CYS Marine is a company that realizes its goal of reaching the widest possible audience with the principle of meeting its customers with the most economical prices. However, while doing so, it does not compromise on quality and customer satisfaction. In fact, the trust created in customers has a big share in the rise of the company. Sefer Çarkçı, one of the founding partners of the company, explains this with the words “Our working principle is to do our job properly, to establish good relations with people and to provide quality service’.
Çarkçı evaluated the development and activities of CSY Marine for Yacht News...
What do you think are the main factors that have brought CSY Marine to the point it has reached today?
When I founded the company, I had no worries about developing our business and bringing it to good places. I always had self-confidence as a person who grew up in the sector and knew the sector. Our basic business principle is to do our job properly, establish good relations with people and provide quality service. After doing this, all that remains is to see the results. The result actually came back to us very quickly. Our job does not end with just selling products to customers, we also stand behind our work. When problems arise, we try to solve them. We act like a solution partner, we provide continuous support to the customer. What we do is a complete teamwork, we follow the work until we reach the result.
How did your customers respond to these principles?
With this understanding, we have added one more layer on top of our existing customers and turnover every year. New ones joined our old customers every year. Our work has spread a lot by word of mouth. The customers we supplied recommended us to people around them. Our customers referenced us to their spouses and friends by saying, “We have children”. We have created this trust in the customer. We do not see the customer as a person to be sold to once. Because we earn from the volume, from the size of our business volume. The customer should say, “My material supplier is better than everyone else in terms of both price and service”. There is a very important trust that we have established and gained with our customers.
Have there ever been any negative situations?
We do not accept a situation where the customer is not satisfied with us. Most importantly, we do not have a single bad reference. When there is a problem, we call the customer again and again, if they are not satisfied with the product, we send a new one, if there is a problem caused by us, we identify it and try to solve it. We do our best not to give a bad image to the market. You have a very wide range of products.
CSY MARINA CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD
Isn't it difficult to keep this under control, to respond to every demand?
We act with the feeling that we have to have all kinds of materials related to the boat. We don't like to say no to the customer. In addition to production and maintenance and repair materials, we also stock installation materials and hobby products. This diversity, which is not available in most stores, is an important advantage for us. I can say that the fact that we respond to the requests we receive in a very short time plays an important role in customers' preference for us. There is no difference for us between a parcel of goods and a screw request. Whatever the customer wants, we supply and deliver it immediately if it is in our stocks, or as soon as possible if it is not in our stocks. We have an experienced team that knows the products very well. This creates a serious trust in the customer. Sometimes customers tell us the need, not the product. We have customers who tell us the number of people on the boat and ask for products. They know that we will do the necessary research on their behalf and find the most suitable product. We supply products from a wide area with domestic market and dealer agreements. There are also products that we distribute and import directly. All the products we sell are marine certified and suitable for use on boats.
What is the distribution of your customer portfolio?
Can you also reach the end consumer? In the beginning, our customers were mainly yacht and boat builders in Tuzla. Over the years, our customer diversity has increased in every direction. Our network has expanded a lot with boat owners, captains, those who receive services from marinas, technical services and those who buy products online. We started with manufacturers in Tuzla and today we have customers in 6-7 branches. We have a very intense work tempo especially during the season. Apart from in-store customers, we also work very intensively in shipment. We are constantly shipping products to the Aegean and Mediterranean regions and to centers where boat production and maintenance and repair are carried out. We prepare the cargoes with a serious shift in the evening.
You also run the e-commerce side of the business, how does that work?
In 2014, we started selling on the internet with our e-commerce site. On our website, we promote the products we bring and sell ourselves. Our product range on the site increases every year. There is a very large segment on the internet that we do not see, especially boat owners. Especially those who do not have time to look for products in the store meet their needs over the internet. Shopping takes place in the virtual environment and we send the product by cargo. Some of our internet customers also come to the store in Tuzla or the marina. Our online store also plays a role in reaching new customers. We are constantly investing in and improving our website. Our internet sales turnover also continues to increase.
What about your retail store in Viaport Marina?
As CSY Marine, we have been aiming to open a branch in the marina since we opened. With the opening of Tuzla Marina, it was very convenient for us to open a store there. In 2016, we opened a branch in the marina. But we have always been patient, anticipating that business will grow over time. A new 300-ton lift came to the marina. Now boats up to 45 meters in length can also be towed ashore. Boat owners who had to go to Yalova or the south will now be able to choose Tuzla Marina. Refit works have started to increase in the dry dock area. This developing service network at the marina reflects positively on us. While we work at an intense pace in the summer months, our business drops by half in the winter months. But these increasing services at the marina have a positive effect on our business volume in the winter months.
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