OZON platform: emerging forces and opportunities in the Russian e-commerce market
OZON, as one of the earliest e-commerce platforms in Russia, has firmly occupied the leading position in the country’s B2C field since its establishment in 1998 and is known as the “Russian Amazon”. According to the latest statistics, Russia has more than 124 million Internet users, the Internet penetration rate has reached 84.35%, and the e-commerce market has reached 4.1 trillion rubles, with an annual growth rate of more than 50%, ranking tenth in the world. Faced with such huge market potential, OZON is gradually becoming the preferred platform for Chinese sellers to enter the Russian market.
In order to further promote the vigorous development of the Russian e-commerce market, OZON plans to attract more than 100,000 Chinese sellers to the platform by 2024. This move will not only help enhance OZON’s global competitiveness, but also bring unprecedented opportunities to Chinese sellers. It is expected that by 2024, the Russian e-commerce market will exceed US$100 billion, and the turnover of Chinese sellers is expected to increase tenfold. To this end, OZON is actively building an overseas warehouse model, optimizing the logistics system, and improving delivery time to enhance consumer loyalty.
Considering Russia’s vast land area, OZON has invested a lot of resources in logistics. Up to now, the company has built more than 1.5 million square meters of warehousing facilities and more than 24,000 product pickup points, covering major cities throughout Russia. In addition, OZON Global China CEO Simon Huang revealed that the FBO model will be launched for Chinese sellers in the first quarter of next year and an official Chinese warehouse will be set up to deliver goods directly to Russian buyers through cooperative carriers, thereby further shortening delivery time. .
The reason why OZON can stand out in the fiercely competitive e-commerce market is due to the combined effect of many factors. On the one hand, the Russian e-commerce market is in a stage of rapid development, with an average growth rate of more than 20% in the past four years; on the other hand, 90% of the products sold on the OZON platform come from China, which just satisfies Russian consumers’ demand for Chinese goods. huge demand. Although the number of Chinese sellers currently active on the OZON platform is less than 10,000, its growth potential is huge.
It is worth noting that OZON has certain threshold requirements for sellers to enter, including but not limited to providing a valid business license, contact information, and completing real-person certification to ensure that platform merchants have legal business qualifications. In addition, for novice sellers who want to join OZON, although they face many challenges, such as mastering necessary operational knowledge and skills, adapting to market changes, etc., as long as they are willing to work hard and continue to learn, there are still opportunities to achieve success in this field. success.
The recent return settings update launched by the OZON platform also provides more convenience for cross-border sellers, allowing sellers to flexibly choose how to receive returns, and supports non-Russian addresses as return destinations. This measure will undoubtedly further enhance the appeal of the OZON platform to international sellers, especially Chinese sellers.
All in all, as the Russian e-commerce market continues to prosper, OZON is rapidly growing into a dazzling new star in the cross-border e-commerce industry with its unique advantages and strategic layout. For Chinese sellers interested in expanding into the Russian market, seizing the current opportunities and achieving business growth on the OZON platform will be a direction worth focusing on in the next few years.