In recent years, Sino-Russian trade has developed rapidly. In 2018, Russia’s e-commerce market revenue reached 18 billion US dollars, and the market transaction volume is expected to reach at least 23 billion US dollars by 2021.
Russia is known as the market with the greatest potential for cross-border e-commerce, and firmly occupies the top spot in China’s cross-border e-commerce transactions.
According to the “2017 World Internet E-commerce Report”, there are currently only 7 countries in the world with more than 100 million Internet users, including Russia.
Data shows that Russia has a total population of about 143 million, and as of the end of December 2017, the number of Internet users reached 110 million, with an Internet penetration rate of 76.1%.
At the same time, in the entire European region, the number of Internet users in Russia accounts for 15.5%, making it the country with the largest number of Internet users in Europe. In comparison, the number of Internet users in the UK accounts for 8.9%, Switzerland accounts for 1.1%, Sweden accounts for 1.4%, Austria accounts for 1.1%, and Italy accounts for 7.8%.
Russia’s outstanding number of Internet users provides strong conditions for the development of the e-commerce market. Let’s take a look at which Russian shopping websites have developed well:
01. Ulmart
Founded in 2008, it claims to be Russia’s No. 1 online store. In the early days of its business, its main products were computers and electronic products, but now its sales categories have expanded to tools, power equipment and toys.
It currently operates more than 130,000 kinds of goods, and its online shopping services cover more than 200 cities across Russia.
In the offline retail field, the company has established Ulmart Store direct stores in many cities, operating and selling special products on its website, helping merchants to promote and sell goods more effectively, and also using the combination of online and offline to increase the popularity and traffic of the online platform.
Internationally, Ulmart has also conducted in-depth cooperation with the two domestic giants JD.com and SF Express.
02. Exist
Founded in 1999, it is a Russian auto parts online store. It mainly provides original and non-original spare parts for multiple popular car models. More than 60,000 users choose the auto parts they need here every day.
In addition to the national delivery and distribution network, Exist also has a dedicated online payment system and provides 24-hour support services.
03. Ozon
Russia’s first online retailer, established in 1998 by Russian software company Reksoft. The website’s main business categories are knowledge products, such as books, music, etc., as well as electronic products, so it is often called “Russia’s Amazon”.
Ozon has a great advantage among Russian shopping websites, that is, consumers have high trust, and compared with other platforms, the repurchase rate has remained high.
04. Wildberries
Founded in 2006, it is the leading online sales platform for shoes, clothing and accessories in Russia.
It mainly deals in fashionable shoes, clothing and accessories. It is also the first e-commerce company in Russia to promise free delivery of all goods throughout Russia, which is deeply loved by many young people.
It can often be seen in the Forbes ranking of Russian shopping websites.
05. Citilink
Founded in 2008, it is now one of the largest online trade stores in Russia. The website sells more than 50,000 household appliances, digital electronics and other products from leading manufacturers around the world.
Citilink is a citilink.ru Internet trading website with more than 50 official stores (including stores with an area of more than 2,000 square meters) and 470 Citilink Mini products.
All Citylink stores are equipped with self-service ordering terminals, cash registers and goods delivery windows. The company’s call center operates 7 days a week and provides 24/7 support to customers.
06. Mymall
It is an e-commerce platform under mail.ru, Russia’s largest Internet company. It was launched in October 2017. Chinese sellers can currently apply for mymall.
Through Mall.My.Com, merchants can sell their products on multiple online sales channels.
These channels include: Pandao.ru (a cross-border e-commerce platform under mail.ru), Youla (Russia’s 58.com), “Cheaper Together” (Russia’s leading group buying website) and ok.ru (Russia’s second largest social network).
07. Emex
Founded in 1999, like Exist, Emex also focuses on the field of automotive parts. There are more than 700,000 related products on the platform, with an average daily visit volume of 40,000 times.
Nowadays, Emex’s core business has shifted to providing big data information and logistics services to auto parts suppliers and consumers.
The above briefly introduces and ranks the local e-commerce platforms in Russia, but if cross-border e-commerce platforms are included, Alibaba’s AliExpress and the United States’ eBay often rank among the top three in the local shopping website rankings.
Among the products sold on Russian shopping websites, shoes and clothing rank first, followed by 3C electronics, and the combined share of the two exceeds 50%, and these are the strengths of Made in China.
However, it is understood that most of the pages of Russian local e-commerce websites are inconvenient to use, the loading speed cannot keep up, the delivery fee is expensive and the logistics is slow, resulting in major problems in the user experience of online shopping, and consumers often complain.
And these are huge opportunities for us who do cross-border e-commerce.