Before the Istanbul Jewelry Fair, we had a chat over coffee with Taç Zincir’s young CEO, Elvis Boyacı, at their newly renovated Kuyumcukent store.
The differences in gold and ounce prices have been negatively impacting sales for a long time. As a company involved in both production and sales, what are your expectations for 2025?
In the past period, especially companies like ours that have focused solely on their core activities have suffered significant losses. As an industry, instead of reacting, we chose to adapt and resort to various tricks to navigate around these differences, and the more we did so, the more these differences persisted. We put the entire industry at risk for the benefit of a few. Yes, everyone experienced a certain level of sales decline, but we also overlooked numerous lost opportunities, and unfortunately, it’s impossible to calculate how much damage these missed opportunities have caused the sector.
The differences in gold prices pushed export-oriented companies to focus on the domestic market, resulting in an artificial inflation in the local market. Everyone provided more goods than the market could absorb, and unfortunately, this led to many companies going bankrupt. On one hand, people dreamed of importing goods from abroad and selling them in the domestic market to multiply their profits, but instead, our liquidity became stuck in stock, and those stocks still haven’t been cleared. I’m a chain manufacturer, and people started offering me chains they had imported from Italy that they couldn’t sell. On the other hand, the price differences made smuggling attractive, and every day we saw news of new gold smuggling cases. It’s a shame; these are losses for our country.
In short, my expectation for 2025 is that if we don’t learn from the past, the differences in prices won’t close, and our difficulties will continue to benefit others. Therefore, I believe 2025 will be a tough year, and all companies should keep their expectations realistic. They should think twice before making bold moves.
What are the three must-haves at Taç Zincir?
Do you have plans for franchising or opening branches in 2025?
We are a company that prefers vertical growth. Horizontal growth doesn’t suit our corporate structure. We prefer to collaborate and operate in potential markets with people who share our values and represent our brand. We grow together with them.
What message would you like to convey to our industry and magazine readers?
As an industry, we are strong both financially and in terms of networking. But we fail to extend this beyond individual use. Perhaps the number of people working in the jewelry sector barely reaches six figures, but we hold a very significant and respected position in this country. I believe we should be more involved in social responsibility projects, sports, and similar activities to bring more positive PR to our industry. We owe this to society. Recently, the reputation of the jewelry industry has been greatly damaged, and we must all work together to restore our image in the eyes of the public.
Lastly, speaking of sports activities, we would be delighted to see our industry support Haremspor, the professional basketball team competing in the TBL. We would appreciate any kind of support, big or small. Even if it’s not financial, we would love to see everyone at our games.
