Having lived in Canada for more than a decade, Muhammet Cetin noticed there was no place in Edmonton where he could buy things from his native Turkey. In late 1999, he made a trip to his homeland with a plan to open a store to sell his country’s wares. “Whatever I saw, I bought and put in a container and shipped it to Edmonton,” says Muhammet. When he returned, he found a space and set up Cappadocia Import Turkish Bazaar.
Muhammet had loaded up that shipping container with anything he thought would sell. There was canned food, jams, Turkish delight, clothing, ceramics and his biggest attraction – hand-woven area rugs. “When I opened the store, a couple of months later all the product was gone,” he says. “I thought,‘this stuff sells good,’ so I kept bringing it. After all these years of running this business, I know what people want and what people will buy.”
