In a press conference held last week, Mail.ru Group, an LSE-listed group of Internet companies whose services are used by 90% of Russia’s online users, announced a series of changes and innovations that ranged from improved usability on e-commerce sites to new social marketing tools. The group also announced the introduction of a new international domain and brand, My.com.
According to Vice President Vladimir Gabrialyan, Mail.ru’s e-commerce teams have thoroughly redesigned some services. The marketplace Torg.mail.ru has been made glossier and more commerce-friendly with usability improvements from enhanced navigation to more direct access to product files and more visible customer reviews.
The platform currently has 2,500 active online shops, the group’s E-Commerce Director Andrey Efimochkin told Oborot.ru, a specialized online resource. A commercial iPhone app was released in September, and an application for the Android platform is to be launched soon. Only 1% of users come from the iPhone application as of now, noted Efimochkin. However, the mobile application users are 2,5 times more active than those using the web interface – so the company will continue to pay particular attention to mobile audiences.
Slow start for fashion
Launched one month ago, the fashion section of Torg.mail.ru is still in its formative period. With the search-by-size function added only very recently, the section has accounted for only 5-7% of the platform’s total audience. The section’s catalog features items from only 20 merchants, Efimochkin conceded, but among them there are such major online retailers as Boutique.ru and Lamoda.ru.
Door2door travel
The group’s travel platform, Travel.mail.ru, launched all-inclusive package tour offers in late October. Gabrialyan indicated that subsequent strategy will favor “door2door service,” implying the possibility of planning and booking an entire journey, from airport taxi to local outings during the tour, in a single section
New social marketing opportunities
The groups of Odnoklassniki, a leading Russian social network, are viewed monthly by 41 million users. To better match brands represented on the network with its users, Odnoklassniki will soon introduce new social media marketing tools. Brands will be able to upload their own skins for groups by the end of the year. All official groups will also get full-fledged statistics on their subscribers’ group visits and activity as well as new posting features for uploading photos, interviews, music and video along with text. New tools to hold photo competitions in the groups will also be introduced. These may be used by brands for marketing purposes, Gabrialyan underlined.
Mail.ru’s offer of targeted advertising through social networks now includes remarketing. This new service allows advertisers to show ads to users who have already visited their websites but did not opt for one of the advertiser-preferred responses, such as online registration or purchase.
A new brand for expansion on new markets
The group also presented My.com as its new brand for projects on foreign markets. “We have made tremendous progress on the Russian Internet market, but we do not intend to stop there,” said Dmitry Grishin, CEO of Mail.Ru Group. “Having tested selected products on foreign markets, we now need a new global name that is short and memorable. This will be My.com.”
Mail.Ru Group claims a “positive experience in entering new markets.” Its portfolio includes several dozen international games, among them Allods Online, Perfect World, Lord of the Rings Online and Warface. The group has offices in a number of countries, including Germany, Israel and Latvia. It has set up a center for localization, which heads up the translation and adaptation of service interfaces and projects for overseas markets.
Contacted by East-West Digital News, the group’s press service did not provide further details on its international plans.
