Çetinkaya opens a store at VanMall in Van, what should a regional chain check first?
Family clothing retailer Çetinkaya has opened a new store on the -1 floor of VanMall, a shopping mall in the eastern Turkish city of Van, with an opening ceremony held on Saturday 10 October 2026 (Mersin Gazetesi, 13 October 2026). The store sells women’s, men’s and children’s clothing along with shoes and accessories.
For a regional chain thinking about its next city, opening in a mall takes more than signing a lease. Floor, local institutions and online findability shape the first months of sales together.
On which floor and with what concept did Çetinkaya open at VanMall?
The store sits on VanMall’s -1 floor and serves the whole family under one roof: women’s, men’s and children’s departments, completed by shoes and accessories. According to Mersin Gazetesi, the company has been in retail since 1957; that detail comes from the company’s own introduction. The report gives neither the store’s size nor its headcount.
What should a regional clothing chain like Çetinkaya check when choosing a mall in a new city?
Four things: who the mall serves, which floor and which neighbours the store will have, whether the rent fits expected sales, and the relationship with local institutions. In Çetinkaya’s case, the first two appear in the report; rent and sales are not shared.
- Do family size and income in the neighbourhoods around the mall fit the product range?
- How many steps is the store’s floor from the car park, the supermarket or the main entrance?
- Does the tenant mix on the same floor draw families to it?
- Can rent and service charges be covered by expected first-year sales per square metre?
- Does mall management contribute to opening communications and events?
- Is there a local network in the city that can build awareness beyond the store?
Who does Çetinkaya’s new VanMall store affect in Van, and how?
Families shopping in Van and tenants on the same floor feel it first. Local stores selling clothing in a similar price band face more competition. Mall management, local suppliers and new sales staff are affected indirectly.
Why does local institutions’ presence at Çetinkaya’s opening matter?
Because institutions a city already knows can lend a store early visibility and trust. According to the report, the governor of Van, Ozan Balcı, attended along with MPs Burhan Kayatürk and Kayhan Türkmenoğlu of the AK Party. Necdet Takva, chair of Van TSO (the local chamber of commerce and industry), and Memet Aslan, chair of Van OSB (the organised industrial zone), were also there. Board member Ömer Çetinkaya represented the company.
How does Çetinkaya’s Van opening show up online and in local search?
A shopper in Van searching for “children’s clothing” or “shoe store” sees first the store that appears on the map and in local search results. For a chain entering a city, the business profile, the mall’s own tenant list and links from local news should be in order from day one.
What should a regional chain like Çetinkaya, opening in a new city, do this week?
Three jobs stand out: compare candidate malls against the checklist, fix the digital listings of existing stores, and draw up a list of local institutions for the opening.
Quick Summary
- Çetinkaya opened a new store on the -1 floor of VanMall in Van (Mersin Gazetesi, 13 October 2026).
- The opening ceremony took place on Saturday 10 October 2026, attended by the governor, MPs and the heads of Van TSO and Van OSB (Mersin Gazetesi).
- The store sells women’s, men’s and children’s clothing with shoes and accessories.
- The store’s floor area, headcount and the company’s total store count were not shared.
- In a new city, floor, neighbouring tenants, local institutions and local search visibility should be planned together.
Short Glossary
- Tenant mix
- Tenant mix is the planning used to decide which brands sit in a mall, in what proportion and where.
- Sales per square metre
- Sales per square metre is the measure used to track how productive a store’s sales floor is, found by dividing total sales by sales area.
- Business profile
- Business profile is the listing used to show a store with its address, hours and photos on maps and in local search results.
Frequently Asked Questions
Next Step
If you would like to plan site selection and local online visibility for a store in a new city together, fill in the Consult Your Expert form, and our desk will work through the checklist for your city with you.
Sources: Mersin Gazetesi, 13 October 2026 · Ministry of Trade of Türkiye, Shopping Malls
Updated: October 2026
Sık Sorulan Sorular
In malls, lower floors often sit close to the car park, a supermarket or a public transport entrance. That position can greet families who arrive with a planned shopping list. Browsing traffic past the window may differ from the ground floor, depending on the neighbours.
Meeting the needs of parents and children in one store is a set-up that lifts the average basket. A family may come to the mall once at the weekend and want to finish back-to-school, holiday or change-of-season shopping at one till.
Floor area, headcount, total store network and opening offer details are not shared. So no judgement is made here about the store’s scale; the reading rests only on the stated location and range.
Our recommendation as a desk is to fill in this list before sitting down at the lease table:
A cheap unit on a dead corridor spends its first months fighting stock that gathers dust on the shelf. With a children’s play area, a supermarket or a strong fashion brand next door, traffic arrives on its own.
The rules for opening, running and inspecting malls in Türkiye rest on Law No. 6585 and a regulation dated 26 February 2016, listed on the shopping malls page of Türkiye’s Ministry of Trade. Check the provisions that affect you as a tenant against the official source; this is not legal or financial advice.
Shoppers who want to buy for the whole family in one place gain a choice. Tenants on the same floor, such as a supermarket, café or play area, may take a share of family traffic. For mall management, a family-focused clothing tenant can fill a gap in the tenant mix.
Independent shops selling the same product groups in the bazaar or on the high street feel the pressure. Complaints of shoppers walking out and tills going quiet may become more common in those shops. Their answer is closeness and quick service, not price cuts.
Malls can serve as an entry point for regional brands moving into a new city. We look at the same question from the angle of an opening offer in our MediaMarkt Koru Florya piece.
Ribbon-cutting and the presence of officials tend to get coverage in local newspapers and news sites. That coverage carries the store’s name into the city’s news in the first weeks. The report does not say what the speakers said, so no words are attributed to anyone here.
The chamber of commerce and the industrial zone are direct points of contact with the city’s business community. Corporate purchases, staffing and local supply conversations often start there. The report shows no such result for Çetinkaya.
No. A ceremony gives one day of visibility; lasting interest comes from the store experience and service.
Store name, mall name and floor should appear in the profile with the same spelling everywhere. Opening hours should match the mall’s hours, and photos of the departments should go up on day one.
A link to the store page next to the brand name in opening coverage helps search engines and AI assistants connect the store with the city. If the company website is under maintenance, those links have nowhere to land. A store locator page should be ready before a new-city opening.
Practical posts, such as a floor plan, the route from the car park and a department tour, stay useful longer than ceremony photos.
Write the six checklist points above into one table for each candidate mall. Count floor traffic with an hour of observation on a weekday and at the weekend, and note neighbouring tenants.
Check name, address and hours on every store’s map profile, one by one. Give each store its own page on the website and use the mall name in the page title. We run this work for retail chains as part of digital consulting.
Prepare a list covering the city’s chamber of commerce, tradespeople’s associations and local press. Share the store’s floor and website link with the invitation. You can follow other retail developments on our retail page, and read about a brand’s ties with universities in our Beymen contest piece.
That depends on how close the floor is to the car park, a supermarket or a transport entrance, and on neighbouring tenants. For families arriving with a plan, a lower floor can be an advantage. Count floor traffic on site for a few days before deciding.
No. But for a brand people do not know yet, the chamber of commerce and local press are channels that can build trust and visibility in the first weeks.
Malls in Türkiye are governed by Law No. 6585 and the Regulation on Shopping Malls. Check the provisions that affect tenants with the Ministry of Trade; this is not legal advice.