90% Gone in Days: Turkish Carpet Seller Reveals

A bustling flea market with various antique items and furniture for sale — Photo: Matej Kastelic / Shutterstock

A Turkish carpet seller’s claim that sales fell by 90 percent lands in the middle of a wider trade shock tied to the Iran war.

Quick Take

Reporting shows a Turkish carpet seller in Istanbul saying business collapsed after the Iran war began.
Turkish industry leaders also say war-linked disruption is hurting carpet exports and logistics.
The strongest proof in the record is sector-wide stress, not a verified shop ledger for the seller.
The story fits a larger pattern where war, tourism, and shipping problems hit small businesses fast.

Seller Says Customers Vanished

Associated Press reporting shows Ali Osman Aykul’s Istanbul carpet shop nearly empty after the Iran war began, with business down by 90 percent in about 10 days. Before the fighting, the shop drew wealthy collectors, especially from the Gulf. After the war started, airports closed and international customers disappeared. The result was a sharp drop in walk-in sales that changed the rhythm of the store almost overnight.

The claim is dramatic, but the available record supports it mainly as a firsthand account. No invoice file, tax record, or merchant sales ledger in the research package confirms the 90 percent figure for this specific shop. That matters because the seller’s experience may be worse than the average, and a national export trend does not automatically prove what happened inside one retail storefront.

Turkey’s Carpet Trade Feels The Shock

Turkey’s carpet sector is also under pressure beyond one shop. Hürriyet Daily News reported that the Turkish Exporters Assembly said carpet exports fell 2.1 percent in value and 2 percent in volume in the January-April 2026 period. İskender Kaplan, who heads the Carpet Sector Council, said the industry has faced problems tied to wars and to supply and logistics trouble connected to the conflict involving Iran.

Reuters likewise reported that Turkish manufacturing contracted in June, with businesses pointing to war disruption in the Middle East as a main reason for weaker demand and supply. That broader business slowdown helps explain why a carpet seller could feel the pain so quickly. If customers travel less, shipping gets harder, and trade routes become less reliable, small retailers often lose sales long before the full economic damage shows up in national data.

Why A Carpet Shop Feels Geopolitics First

Carpet sales depend heavily on travel, foot traffic, and foreign buyers who come in person. Hürriyet Daily News said the Middle East is a major market for Turkish carpets, with the United States, Saudi Arabia, and Britain among the top export destinations. That makes the region’s instability more than a distant headline. When cross-border travel slows or visitor flows change, a carpet shop can lose customers faster than a factory loses orders.

The wider regional pattern supports that view. Al Jazeera reported that Iran’s carpet sellers have struggled as tourism fell and international transactions became harder, leaving many rugs unsold. Other reporting says sanctions and currency rules have pushed Iran’s carpet exports close to collapse over time. Together, those reports show how quickly politics, sanctions, and war can reshape a trade built on movement, trust, and face-to-face selling.