Mars Inc. has launched an online store of handmade chocolate sweets in Russia. The sweets are sold under the popular Russian brand ‘A. Korkunov,’ which Mars Inc. acquired in 2008 as a part of Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company.
This brand accounted for 2.6% of the Russian chocolate retail market in 2016, with sales amounting to 12.65 billion rubles (some $190 million at the average exchange rate of the year), according to Euromonitor data cited by the Russian business daily Vedomosti.
The new online shop offers 12 selections and 14 flavors of sweets, which are manufactured in the group’s factory in Odintsovo nearby Moscow. The price varies from 1,399 to 6,549 rubles per selection (roughly $24 and $113, respectively, at the current exchange rate).
These handmade sweets cannot be preserved for more than two weeks. This hinders distribution through traditional stores, Ekaterina Eliseeva of Mars Chocolate Russia told Vedomosti.
The company expects the site to generate 700-800 daily views on average, with 5,000-7,000 daily views before Christmas and New Year, as well as in spring.
Currently the sweets are delivered within the Moscow region only, with a minimum order of 1,500 rubles ($26). In the future, Mars is planning to make delivery available beyond the Moscow region and to enlarge the online assortment.
French kiss from Belgium for Russians
Several other Russian sweet manufacturers already sell their production online via their own site. For example, ‘Pobeda,’ a popular brand from Soviet times, has been doing so since 2015. Last year, its online store generated more than 5,000 orders with an average order value of 2,500 rubles ($43), the company told Vedomosti.
Another example is French Kiss, which offers Belgian-made chocolates. This company’s online sales accounted for no less than 7% of total retail sales last year, according to Dmitry Schuetzle of VIY Management (VIYM).
The online sales channel will gain even more traction in the future since consumers have got used to buying on the Internet, especially goods they are familiar with, Schuetzle believes.
Mon’delez Rus, a competitor of Mars operating under the brands ‘Alpen Gold,’ ‘Milka’ and ‘TUC,’ does not have its own online store, but does partner with such major Russian e-commerce sites as Ozon.ru and Utkonos.ru.
The Russian e-commerce market exceeded $26 billion last year, including $16.3 billion for physical goods in the domestic and cross-border segments, in addition to some $10 billion for the travel segment.
