FOCUS: Lower offline sales, young buyers to boost 2019 e-commerce market to 2 tln rbl

By Yekaterina Yezhova

MOSCOW, Jun 17 (PRIME) -- The Russian e-commerce market could grow by a third in 2019 to 2.179 trillion rubles, the Association of Internet Trade Companies (AITC) said, and sellers explained the rise by an inflow of buyers from brick-and-mortar stores and expansion of young audience.

“The online market will continue growing mainly thanks to an outflow of buyers from offline shops and an increasing young financially reliable audience who turns into active online shoppers,” Andrei Osokin, marketing director at online marketplace goods.ru, belonging to retail giant M.Video-Eldorado Group, told PRIME.

The average check on goods.ru increased 10% on the year in January–March, he said without disclosing absolute figures.

“The trends that appeared last year will stay in force – in the first place, it is client’s preference of more emotional communication rather than aggressive sales. As to goods.ru, the assortment is becoming one of the main unique selling propositions, above prices and loyalty bonuses. It again proves the right choice of a stockless marketplace, where a wider choice is the key growth driver,” Osokin said.

E-commerce accounted for 5.3% of the country’s total retail turnover in 2018 compared to 23.9% in China, 19.5% in the U.K., and 14.3% in the U.S., the AITC said in the research conducted together with several institutions, including the country’s biggest bank Sberbank and researcher J’son & Partners.

Local trade vs cross-border

The association assessed that the share of internal trade could go down to 68.8%, or 1.499 trillion rubles, in 2019 from 69.1%, or 1.153 trillion rubles a year earlier. The share of cross-border trade would rise to 31.2%, or 680 billion rubles, from 30.1%, or 504 billion rubles.

The number of orders from foreign online stores would rise to 450 million parcels in 2019 from 380 million in 2018.

In 2018, Moscow and St. Petersburg led both on the local market and on the cross-border market in money, accounting together for a third of total sales.

On the local market, digital and household appliances accounted for 31% in money in 2018, clothes and footwear at 23%, and furniture and homeware at 10.7%.

On the cross-border market, clothes and footwear held 33% of sales, digital and household appliances 28.3%. Furniture and homeware goods, health and beauty, and automobile share parts accounted for 7% each.

In money, 54% of all expenses in foreign online stores were made in China, 22% in the E.U., and 11% in the U.S. In units, 92% of foreign orders were placed with Chinese stores, 3% with E.U. stores and 2% with U.S. shops.

On the whole, Russians made 306 million transactions in foreign online stores in 2018.

The association and J’son and Partners analyzed that 64.3% of purchases amounted up to 22 euros, 20.3% from 22 to 50 euros, 10.7% from 50 to 150 euros, 2.7% from 150 to 500 euros, 0.99% from 500 to 1,000 euros, and 0.41% over 1,000 euros.

The association discovered that 79% of orders with local e-shops were made via desktop, while 16% were placed via Android and 5% by iOS mobile devices in 2018. On the cross-border market, desktop accounted for 80% as well, and Android had 16% and iOS 4%.

(64.4326 rubles – U.S. $1)

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