Sber (previously know as Sberbank) is demonstrating once again its ambitions in the field of e-commerce with the acquisition of SaaS provider InSales, which was announced yesterday.
The state-controlled financial and digital giant has agreed to acquire an 80% stake in InSales for an undisclosed amount. The rest of the shares will remain in the hands of the co-founders and top executives. The deal is expected to be closed until mid-2021.
Founded in 2008, InSales provides SMBs with all the tools they need to start selling online — “in just one day and without any programmer,” the company claims. These tools are about managing site design and content, administration, inventory and order management, client communication, business promotion, integrating delivery and payment solutions, etc.
With customers in Russia, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan, InSales claims to support 8,000 up and running online stores. This activity generates more than one million orders monthly, amounting to some 4 billion rubles in turnover ($52 million at the current exchange rate).
Sber and InSales intend to develop further the platform jointly: they will “expand the list of services on offer, enter new market segments and, in the near future, build a universal instrument to manage online sales across all e-storefronts using this platform.”
InSales co-founder and CEO Timofey Gorshkov — a figure of the Russian e-commerce scene — said: “Maintaining a high rate of change and our rank at the forefront of e-commerce tech requires significant investments. That is why we consider this step to be the natural response to market transformations. The Sber ecosystem is gathering major players across industries. Product synergies will allow us to provide retailers and producers with the next level of tools and services: marketplace entry, the launch of online retail operations, social network and messaging automation, and integrated delivery and payment infrastructure.”
Anatoly Popov, Deputy Chairman of Sber’s Executive Board, sees in this acquisition a means to provide new opportunities for SMEs, which account for the majority of Sber’s corporate customers (2.5 million businesses).
“Our goal is to offer any company an opportunity to start an online business as effectively as possible by using all available tools and sales channels. We expect the scale of InSales business to increase manifold in the next few years,” he stated.
Another example of Sber acquisition in the field of e-commerce was Shiptor, two years ago. This mid-sized logistics and delivery service provider was later rebranded to Sberlogistika.
