The online marketplace eBay and Russian Post have signed a memorandum of cooperation in order to reduce the time of delivery of goods to Russia from the company’s major markets. The agreement on the joint delivery of parcels was signed by Vice-President of eBay Wendy Jones and Director of Russian Post Dmitry Strashnov.
Both customers and foreign retailers have often expressed their misgivings about the long delivery times of international orders handled by Russia’s national postal provider. As eBay is the dominant cross-border platform in Russia, responsible for the largest flow of goods into the country (some 90,000 parcels daily as of late 2013), the company has a major stake in speeding up deliveries.
The first joint project – ePaket – will be launched on August 1, 2014. Its customers will be able to send a parcel through eBay at an accelerated rate, said Strashnov. The company will provide the operator with the necessary parcel information and the Russian Post’s database will be integrated with other systems used by eBay, such as Bitrix and CNS, with which the company has also signed partnership agreements.
“We will load the data on parcels into the information system of the Russian Post, which will help with the customs clearance of goods in Russia,” said Jones.
“It is widely expected that in the next five years, the volume of cross-border trade will double every year,” said Strashnov. “We’re on the same side with the players trading online; we are all interested in improving the quality of services rendered. We look at all possible markets and models so that we don’t just participate but also shape the market for cross-border trade,” he added.
Cross-border e-commerce to Russia amounted to approximately $3 billion in 2013, up 75% in volume from the previous year, according to a research study by East-West Digital News.
