Russia is an important fulcrum country of the “Belt and Road” initiative and is known as the market with the greatest potential for cross-border e-commerce. Located in the must-pass place for the construction of the New Eurasian Continental Bridge Economic Corridor, it firmly occupies the top spot in China’s cross-border e-commerce transactions.
The number of consumers is huge. According to data from Russia’s largest Internet company “YAN-DEX”, Russia is the largest country in Europe in terms of Internet users. Among Russia’s 143 million people, 83 million are active Internet users, of which about 40 million use online shopping. It can be predicted that with the popularization of broadband and mobile terminal devices in Russia and the change of consumer purchasing concepts, the number of people trying to buy online is expected to increase further.
Russian consumers’ cross-border e-commerce consumption is growing rapidly, and the potential market is huge. According to the scale of Russian consumers’ consumption of e-commerce (including local e-commerce and cross-border e-commerce), according to data, the Russian e-commerce market reached US$20 billion in 2017. Because of the proposal of the “Belt and Road” initiative, it can be predicted that by 2020, Russian consumers’ consumption on e-commerce will reach US$40-50 billion.
Russia’s cross-border e-commerce has broad room for future development. Russia’s current e-commerce retail sales account for 1.9% of its total retail sales, while the global average is 6.5%. Compared with the international average, Russia’s electrical appliance retail sales account for a lower proportion of total retail sales, and there is greater room for future development. Regardless of how the economic and political conditions change in the future, Russia’s e-commerce market will develop rapidly and usher in rapid growth.