Ulmart, a major Russian e-commerce player with a mixed online-offline distribution model, is still maintaining its billion-dollar turnover in dollar terms, even though it has seen sales slow down amid the current crisis.
On the sidelines of the recent St Petersburg International Economic Forum, Ulmart CEO Sergey Fedorinov shared with bne IntelliNews the latest news and next plans of his company.
Among these plans is the project to use the Ulmart platform to export Russian goods to other markets.
Fedorinov even believes that Ulmart could become a staging post for Chinese retail goods heading for Europe, with St Petersburg effectively acting as a giant logistics centre to collect products from manufacturers before sending them on to customers in the rest of Europe.
Commenting on Ulmart’s hybrid fulfilment model, Fedorinov said: “A customer can come to our urban fulfilment centres 24 hours a day and seven days a week to choose the goods or talk to our experts. You can order online and get the goods from one of our pick up centres. Or the most expensive way is to order online and have it sent to your home. There is about a 5% difference in price between each option. In general, it makes the most sense to come to an urban fulfilment centre if you are buying a bulky good, whereas small and light things do not cost much to have delivered to your home. It’s part IKEA and part Amazon.”
Ulmart has two “hyper” format “suburban fulfilment centres” and another 40 smaller “urban fulfilment centres” in other cities. The company plans to roll out six more “hyper” format sites across Russia the country by 2018, writes bne IntelliNews.
“Ulmart is part IKEA and part Amazon,” says CEO Sergey FedorinovRead More
