Last week X5 Retail Group, a leading Russian food retailer listed on the Moscow and London stock exchanges, announced that its online sales – through Perekrestok.ru and Delivery.Pyaterochka – amounted to 1.7 billion rubles (incl. VAT, approximately $22.6 million) in April.
This is a 4.7-time increase in value from the same month of last year. The total number of orders delivered through both online platforms during the month exceeded 520,000. The average order value reached 4,537 rubles (approximately $60). At the end of the month, X5 was delivering more than 23,000 orders per day, “and that number continues to grow.”
These results have propelled X5 Retail Group among the leaders on Russia’s online grocery market, along with:
- Ozon.ru, Russia’s leading multicategory e-commerce company;
- Utkonos.ru, the traditional leader in this segment;
- Sbermarket, previously known as Instamart, backed by the Sberbank-Mail.ru Group O2O joint venture;
- iGooods, a Russian startup backed by international marketplace Joom.
X5 Retail Group attributes its recent online successes to “the efficient operating models of its two online platforms, investments in digitalisation over the last years, its long-term strategy to develop digital services, its strong team, and its ability to leverage its position as Russia’s largest food retailer to achieve favourable procurement conditions.”
“During the quarantine designed to combat the spread of the COVID-19 virus in Russia and introduced for the period from March 21 to on May 11, our consumers more than ever need safe ways to get food to feed their households without having to visit a store,” said X5 CEO Igor Shekhterman.
“In the largest cities, we [were] able to offer our fellow citizens two convenient ways to meet this demand: first by stocking up via our online supermarket (in Moscow, the Moscow region and St Petersburg), which offers a wide assortment of food, household goods, personal hygiene products, children’s goods and pet supplies; second with express delivery from a nearby Pyaterochka store (176 outlets in Moscow and Kazan), with deliveries completed in 1.5-2 hours based on the assortment of our standard proximity store.”
X5 Retail Group started investing in online infrastructure in 2017. The group commissioned four dark stores and a fleet of 283 delivery trucks.
The group intends to launch Perekrestok.ru in Nizhny Novgorod next summer, “based on an innovative solution of transforming a former Karusel hypermarket into a dark store.”
“This will be Russia’s first full-fledged online food retail platform boasting a wide product range, including fresh produce, offered in regional markets outside Moscow and St Petersburg.”
The plans also include the launch of express delivery from Perekrestok stores using a new app called ‘Perekrestok.Bystro.’
However, so far, online sales still account for a tiny fraction of X5 Retail Group’s business. In April 2020, online sales did not exceed 2% of X5’s turnover in Moscow, the Moscow region and St Petersburg, where this sales channel were available.
