Yandex advances Russian eCommerce with two new platforms

Beru's Moscow fulfillment centre (Source Yandex)Yandex, the Russian eCommerce and technology company announces its new eCommerce service for cross-border shopping – Called Bringly. This new service offers Russian customers an opportunity to buy goods from the UK, Turkey, South Korea, China, Germany, Israel and several other countries.

Earlier this year, Yandex introduced an online market online marketplace, Beru, or “I’ll take it.”  Beru shoppers can make purchases from multiple categories on one platform and rely on streamlined delivery and logistics. Yandex and Sberbank have been operating the Beru platform in beta since June 2018 and have already fulfilled over 180,000 orders.

Beru was officially launched two weeks ago. The platform features more than 1,000 retailers and 600 shopping categories from household appliances to cosmetics. During the testing period, Beru also added new categories including grocery that features dry goods. A pharmacy service enables shoppers to order medications for in-store pick-up from over 10,000 participating pharmacies.

Russian eCommerce – Impressive developments

Yandex has showed impressive development in advancing online shopping within Russia.

In 2002, Yandex officially launched its comparison shopping platform Yandex.Market. The platform offers books, films, cosmetics, footwear, clothing, stationery, and toys from 150 e-commerce sites. Today, Yandex.Market serves over 20 million monthly users, offering them over 160 million goods from over 21,000 sites.

To provide more reliable and affordable shipping options across Russia, Beru orders are processed and delivered from a Moscow-based fulfillment centre. Beru offers next day delivery in Moscow. The service improves the delivery experience to the far regions of Russia, which have traditionally had longer wait times and higher shipping costs.

Beru provides an eCommerce platform for goods delivered within Russia. Bringly will cater to the growing cross-border eCommerce market, improving logistics and delivery times. The platform offers shoppers over four million products from the world’s most popular brands.

Bringly will house the site’s most popular goods in a Latvia-based warehouse to speed up shipping. The cost of shipping varies depending on the location of the retailer. For instance, Bringly offers free delivery for all goods purchased from Turkey, China or Latvia. Customers can also opt to use standard or express delivery by Russian Post.

Incredible potential

Maxim Grishakov (ImageCredit:https://www.worldretailcongress.com/speakers/maxim-grishakov)
Maxim Grishakov, CEO of Yandex.Market

According to Maxim Grishakov, CEO of Yandex.Market, “The Russian eCommerce market is still developing and has incredible potential for both domestic goods and cross-border sales.

“There are still many areas for improvement to make the online shopping process better for users.  With Beru, Yandex is using its technological developments to create a greater eCommerce experience. Through Bringly, we are excited to be providing users with even more options by delivering goods directly to consumers. Two in three Russians make cross-border purchases online.

These two new eCommerce platforms will be added to Yandex.Market, which saw 71% growth in Q3 2018 compared to 2017. Yandex plans to introduce customers to a new, efficient shopping experience as they expand its logistics capabilities to offer even more categories and goods.

Russian eCommerce snapshot

More than 143.7 million people live in Russia, which makes it the 9th biggest country in the world. Slightly more than 45% of all Russian people are between 25 and 54 years old. In early 2014, 59% of the adult population (69 million people) had access to the Internet, making Russia Europe’s number one in terms of Internet users.

The Ecommerce Foundation has estimated that eCommerce in Russia was worth over 14 billion euros in 2017. This is a 13 percent increase compared to the market in 2016. For this year (2018), it is forecasted that eCommerce in Russia will grow again with a similar percentage, and will be worth 15.9 billion euros.

Analyst group East-West Digital News believes the Russian eCommerce sector could grow to 35 billion to 50 billion euros by the end of this decade and exceed 75 billion euros in ten years.

According to information from Ecommerce Foundation in 2018, the most popular product categories (in terms of turnover) in Russia are household appliances & electronics, clothing & footwear and computer, notebooks & computer parts. When asked what kind of products consumers mostly order online, electronics, clothing and household appliances are the most given answers.

What does this mean for retailers in Russia?

Russia is getting to a critical mass of ‘mature’ Internet users. This will inevitably drive the rise in the number of transactions online as users become more accustomed to eCommerce’s way of life.

According to Morgan Stanley analysts, Russia is the last major emerging market without a dominant online retailer.  The top four e-commerce companies in Russia currently account for a mere 27% of the market vs. 63% in the USA and 84% in China. Morgan Stanley are betting on the emergence of “a leader being worth $10 billion” by 2020.

The changes Yandex has made to its platform can be seen as an attempt to move to the forefront of Russia emerging eCommerce marketplace. The company has teamed up with Sberbank, the country’s leading financial institution.  Sberbank is committed to invest as much as $500 million in the joint venture.  Clearly the company is looking to imitate the Amazon model for Russia.

1 COMMENT

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here