To better understand ZBS Boya's success in the sector and its future goals, we conducted an exclusive interview with Chairman Bülent Yıldız. In this interview, we covered many topics ranging from Yıldız's professional career and the founding story of ZBS Boya, to how it rose to a leading position in the sector, its innovation-focused approach, and its digitalized business model.
"By producing Turkey's first Floor Coating and opening a new segment in the paint sector, we knew very well that we would become 'Turkey's most preferred Floor Coating' brand and the sector leader as we are today. With the momentum we gained from this, we once again launched paint sales with free shipping from our factory to the consumer's door for the first time in Turkey."
Could you tell us about yourself and your professional life?
It was 1995 and I was 17 years old. I had just finished high school, but university wasn't really for me. My father was very angry with me and, thinking I should experience hardship and see life's difficulties, wanted to put me to work. I started working as an "office assistant" at a manufacturing company near our home in Istanbul/Bostancı, which was newly established at that time but has now become a major paint brand. They hired me partly because our home was nearby and they felt sorry for my father's dedication.
Within a few months, they gave me the hardest jobs possible to make me quit and go to university. But I loved my job and business life very much. Over time, I took on roles in marketing and active sales departments and worked there for a full 10 years. During this period, I gained knowledge and opinions on many topics in the paint sector, such as dealership and sales structures, and consumer-focused marketing models.
My first business venture, which I started towards the end of 2005, ended in major disappointment and failure. During this period, I not only lost all my savings but also went into significant debt. In fact, in 2008, I even submitted my CV and asked for a job at several paint brands that are now our competitors; no one hired me. I strongly believed in the "floor coating" idea in my mind and that this idea would get me back on track. Everyone around me thought I was dreaming and that this was not possible. If it were possible, they thought, the major manufacturers would have already produced it.
In 2009, with a sole proprietorship I established, I started my working life again from scratch—and even from debt—by marketing thinner and hardware products to hardware dealers. Because I sold thinner, hardware dealers had saved my contact as "the thinner guy" back then. In 2015, I began paint manufacturing with water-based small-scale products. In 2016, after producing our first floor coating and starting sales with free shipping online, we continue to grow and develop with our newly built 10,000 m² enclosed factory in Kocaeli, now exporting to 8 different countries.
What convinced you that ZBS could become Turkey's first registered "floor coating" manufacturer, registered by the Turkish Patent and Trademark Office?
The only paint alternative consumers considered for floors was epoxy products. However, there were many misconceptions about this. You cannot use epoxy paints by dipping a roller in a bucket. They must go through stages that can become a coating. While going through these stages, you must wait for long curing periods in layers. They should never be used in sun-exposed areas. The epoxies used for floors must be solvent-free. Solvent-based epoxies, which are affordable and used for vertical metal surfaces in the maritime industry, are not used on floors.
To eliminate all this information pollution, creating a "floor coating" product that would achieve the effect consumers thought epoxy had and expected—one that resists impact, dries quickly, is waterproof, unaffected by pedestrian and vehicle traffic, is simple to apply, and suitable for do-it-yourself systems—would be very innovative.
Through the effective advertising campaigns we launched, we conducted very strong promotions in both visual and print media. This created great interest in the ZBS brand among our consumers, and other paint manufacturers could not remain indifferent and began producing "floor coatings."
How did ZBS Boya create the floor coating segment in Turkey? How did your brand become known?
ZBS Boya introduced a new segment to the paint sector by developing more than 60 products in 8 different categories for the first time in Turkey in the floor coating and complementary flooring products range. This innovation made ZBS Boya the market leader in floor coatings. Customer satisfaction and positive feedback about the product created a good perception. Additionally, with our advertising campaign that helped us reach our target audience more easily, we achieved even greater success. Especially during the pandemic period, people learned to paint on their own.
You will be surprised: many customers, including housewives, who had difficulty sourcing paint through other channels, requested ZBS Boya from our digital platform. With digital sales that we started through www.zbsmarket.com, we sent paint from our factory to our consumers' doors with free shipping. Thanks to the production system we developed, we produced every order within one day and handed it over to the shipping company. Through technical information provided by our Call Center, we selected the right substrate and the right ZBS product together. As a result, our consumers loved and trusted the ZBS brand. We did not leave this trust unrequited and took on a task that the sector had not previously undertaken. In a short time, everyone who examined our various products—from floor coating to water insulation spray—saw that they could find many things they needed at ZBS.
How do you view the increasing importance of technology and digitalization in the paint sector? Could you provide information about ZBS's digital sales model?
If you don't incorporate technology and a digitalized business model into your work, you fall behind. With our zbsmarket sales platform, ZBS Boya has created an innovative business model in the digital world: we deliver floor coating from our factory to our consumers without quantity limitations and with free shipping. Everyone with a smartphone in their pocket is a ZBS Dealer! Our digital platform is also open to sales points that want to sell ZBS products, allowing them to maintain unified pricing and profit sharing.
Does ZBS Boya grant dealerships, or is it purely digitally sales-focused?
We have dealers throughout Turkey. We do grant dealerships, but as ZBS Boya, we have greatly changed the concept of 'paint dealership.' Sales prices are already available on our online site. All our dealers sell at these prices with free shipping and, unlike other dealerships, earn their margin from ZBS Boya, not from the consumer. Thanks to our feature of being able to ship even a single unit with free shipping, they don't need to hold much stock. We receive many dealership requests from throughout Turkey. We are selective in this regard and conduct very productive work together with our dealers.
How do you protect this success and brand that you have created as ZBS Boya?
Recently, a friend sent me a property listing they found online. We were very happy to see an expression there. While describing the features of the property, the seller wrote: "The floors have been newly coated with ZBS. All flooring is ZBS." From this, we understand that our people identify "floor coating" with the ZBS brand and refer to it that way. For a manufacturer and brand owner, this is a great honor.
Although ZBS exists as a name, of course "floor coating" is a universal term; it is not exclusively under ZBS control. Any brand can produce it; however, we have seen that some opportunists imitate our brand by copying expressions from our website in the same way, and then transfer them to their own pages, perhaps after making minor modifications. So much so that we discovered that they answer consumer calls to their main phone lines not with their own brand name, but with "Hello? 'Floor coating,' please," in order to manipulate consumer perception of floor coating and strengthen the effect of being mistaken for ZBS. All of this is being monitored very closely by our company's lawyers, and our rights arising from our brand law are protected under our supervision to the fullest. We stand with and support all legitimate competition.
What are your next product targets, and how would you summarize the key factors that make ZBS Boya different in the competitive paint sector environment?
To start, we launched a paint that consumers did not know existed. Everything had a paint, but floors didn't. We were innovative and pioneering. On the path we took to correct misconceptions or 'assumptions' about paint and to offer products suitable for our people's needs, particularly in waterproofing products, we will develop new products that can be used from foundation to roof, in structural and surface areas. Our success in maintaining the frequency of alignment with our target audience—a characteristic unique to us—transforming into a recognized and respected brand that exports products and, so to speak, experiences heavy demand, is not by chance. Being accessible, sustainability, and undoubtedly consistency. Understanding the value of innovation and acting accordingly, R&D investments, and seeing technology as part of the process at every stage are among the most important characteristics that differentiate us.
Finally... could you provide information about ZBS's corporate social responsibility projects?
ZBS Boya supports education through its corporate social responsibility project titled "We Mix Our Feelings Into Our Work" by meeting the paint needs of schools with limited resources in the East Anatolia region. In recent times, as a much-discussed topic, we volunteer to develop homes for our street animal friends and work in coordination with municipalities to meet the shelter needs of street animals. This can be reviewed on our website and social media pages.
Interview: Faruk Yazıcıoğlu
Photography: Oğuzhan Dağıstanlı
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