In 2015, Russia’s domestic online retail market still grew in real terms amid the crisis, says fresh data compiled by East-West Digital News in a new report.
Russian e-commerce grew in rubles, reaching some 650 billion (+16%) as far as physical goods were concerned, according to Data Insight, while the inflation rate did not exceed 13%.
Given the ruble’s sharp depreciation, the picture looks darker in dollars: market size fell to $10.5 billion for physical goods, down 28% from 2014. These numbers do not include cross-border orders, deliveries of ready meals as well as corporate, C2C, MLM and group purchases.
A considerable growth potential is still ahead, however, since online retail accounts for just 2% of Russia’s total retail market
While the domestic market slowed down, cross-border purchases continued to grow rapidly in 2015. Their value amounted to some $3.4 billion, up from $2.2 billion in 2014, which corresponded to 135 and 75 million parcels and small packages, respectively, according to the conservative estimates of industry association NAMO.
However, only Chinese players, which saw their share of the cross-border flows jump to some 80%, benefited from this growth. The activity of western merchants — which had seen their sales to Russia grow dramatically in 2011-2013 and stagnate in 2014 — was severely hit by the ruble’s depreciation. The sales volumes of many of them decreased by more than half in 2015.
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