Evaluation of Marketing Performance Levels of Customs Brokerage Firms with Interval-Valued Pythagorean Fuzzy AHP-WASPAS Hybrid Model

This study aims to systematically evaluate the marketing performance of customs brokerage companies serving international trade enterprises. The objective is to identify and prioritize the key criteria influencing marketing performance in this highly competitive and regulated sector. The research adopts a hybrid fuzzy multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) methodology. The main criteria and sub-criteria were identified through semi-structured expert interviews. The Interval-Valued Pythagorean Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (IVPF-AHP) was employed to assess the relative importance of each criterion. Subsequently, the Interval-Valued Pythagorean Fuzzy Weighted Aggregated Sum Product Assessment (IVPF-WASPAS) method was applied to evaluate the marketing performance of 85 customs brokerage companies in Mersin, Türkiye. These methods were preferred due to their ability to effectively address uncertainty in expert judgments and provide reliable evaluation results. The analysis revealed that personnel experience is the most significant determinant of marketing performance, while location is the least influential. Legal compliance and staff attitude also emerged as critical factors. The study provides a ranking of companies based on comprehensive criteria, highlighting substantial variation in performance across the sector. The results offer actionable guidance for customs brokerage managers to improve their marketing strategies.