We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Melek Cansu Petek. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Melek Cansu below.

Melek Cansu, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?

I started Petek Trading Co. as a way to share the cultural wealth of my home country. As a Turkish immigrant in the US, I started noticing more and more companies selling goods from the part of the world I grew up in. I have noticed that even the companies that have fair trade / ethical business practices, fell short of acknowledging the full extent and importance of where these goods come from, and the artisans who make them. This gave me the idea to create that missing link: Connecting directly with the artisans of my home country to bring their goods and our shared stories here to the US. This would allow me to support our artisans financially while also giving me an opportunity to talk about my heritage through handmade products. I reconnected with an artisan I have met in my student days in Ankara (the capital of Turkey), and bought a batch of kilim coasters from him to test out my idea. And everything snowballed from there!

Melek Cansu, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I was born and raised in Adana, a town in the south of Turkey. I moved to the US in 2015 for graduate school, and my two-year program turned into settling in Saint Paul, MN after meeting my husband. Being an immigrant and living in a foreign country has its ups and downs, but it definitely makes you aware of the fact that you are, in certain ways, different. After grappling with that, and going through a grueling immigration process, I wanted to find a way to celebrate that difference.

What sets my business apart is that I am a Turkish immigrant, selling Turkish goods. I have hand-picked every item, worked directly with our makers and found ways to improve our product quality. Our business model, first and foremost, focuses on the wellbeing of our artisans, both with ethical pricing, and with production timelines. When you buy from Petek Trading Co., you get to know who made your goods, and rest easy that these products were ethically sourced.

Can you talk to us about how your side-hustle turned into something more.

Petek Trading Co. initially started out as a side hustle. At the time I was a retail manager at a big chain, and did most of my sales to friends and through Etsy. I wasn’t sure what to expect, or whether I could even sell the small batches of product that I had purchased. It was so encouraging to see the warm reception of the business. People loved the goods, but more importantly loved the stories that came with them. It gave me hope that I could one day grow this business into a full time career. Then, the slow months hit. I was already working full time and wasn’t able to pour as much into my business, but I continued to purchase inventory. I did not want to disappoint the artisans and makers I was working with, even though I did not have enough sales to keep doing it. I decided to take a risk and quit my job in September 2021 so that I could focus on growing this business during the holiday season.

I participated in a lot of craft markets, put together my own website, and the sales started to grow again. It was exhausting but thrilling at the same time. I came to realize that products like ours, goods with stories, need to be in front of people. So I started to dream about opening a storefront. It happened a lot quicker than I would have thought! The St Paul Downtown Alliance gave me a chance to test out my storefront idea through their Grow Downtown initiative, and I opened my store in September 2022.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

It is no secret that social media changed A LOT over the last few years, and in ways that don’t support small business owners. My advice to those just starting to build their social media presence is: Be true to yourself. Don’t get caught up on numbers. What you do matters, regardless of your social media reach. It is better to grow slowly and build a rapport with your audience then to blow up overnight without having any personal connections. There needs to be consistency, but you get to determine what that looks like for your business.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.petektradingco.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/petektradingco/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/petektradingco/

Image Credits
Personal photo credit: Aduro Images First 4 photos: Aduro Images