KEY FACTS & NUMBERS ON THE RUSSIAN E-COMMERCE MARKET
• In 2016, the domestic online retail market exceeded $22 billion (including $12 billion for physical goods and $10 billon for online travel), growing by more than 20% year-on-year despite the crisis. Some western-funded companies (like KupiVip, Lamoda, and Ozon) recorded impressive growth in 2016, while others (Oktogo and Wikimart) are on the verge of bankruptcy.
• The cross-border e-commerce market is growing even faster (+26% in value, +80% in number of parcels and small packages), exceeding $4 billion for physical goods only. Since 2014, this growth has been driven essentially by Chinese companies, first and foremost Alibaba's B2C marketplace Aliexpress.ru. Key western players, however, are also in the game (e.g. Amazon, Asos, Next, Yoox)
• Since 2014, due to the crisis, the real-estate infrastructure has become dramatically cheaper and more accessible. Leveraging these opportunities, key players in the retail industry are engaged in huge projects to build, expand or upgrade their warehousing and fulfilment facilities.
• Even though half of e-commerce companies have their own infrastructure, demand still exceeds offer on the fulfilment service market. In spite of improvements over the past years, the service performance of many providers leaves to be desired.
• Delivery conditions across this huge country have improved considerably over the past years. The delivery service industry is entering a phase of consolidation with a series of mergers and acqusitions over the past months. The most recent one, in January, was the acquisiting of SPSR Express by DPD, a property of France's GeoPost