Yandex, the Russian search company behind leading marketplace Yandex.Market, announced yesterday the launch of Yandex.Delivery, a service which aggregates offers from several e-commerce shipment service providers.
Yandex.Delivery allows Internet stores to work more easily with several carriers with a unified account and paperwork. E-merchants may install a widget on their site, allowing shoppers to choose the delivery price and timeframe that suits their needs.
The service is free of charge: the Internet store will pay only for the delivery of goods according to carriers’ tariffs and for any extra services such as sorting goods or receiving payments from shoppers.
“Many stores do not deliver goods to Russia’s regions due to the difficulty of logistics and the cost: it would involve working with a number of different delivery services, paying each of them for shipment separately and dealing with all the associated documentation and accounting. As a result, regional e-shoppers have a narrow choice of goods; they are unable to purchase what they need online and order delivery to their location. The new Yandex.Delivery service solves these problems, simplifying logistics for Internet stores,” explains Yandex.
MultiShip reincarnated
Yandex states that it is “taking responsibility if anything should happen to goods along the way.”
At present Yandex.Delivery is using the services of four carriers – Axiomus, Boxberry, STRIZH, DPD – in addition to the Russian Post. Even through the largest shipment companies, SPSR Express and CDEK, are absent, Yandex says the system covers all of Russia’s regions with all possible delivery options – courier, pickup points and packstations.
In addition, Yandex plans to transfer payments to stores the day after goods are delivered, regardless of whether the carrier has already transferred the funds.
“Our general approach is to lift, step-by-step, all the barriers that inhibit users from doing regular and pleasant online purchases – from inconvenient payment, to high prices, to weak logistics, to merchants failing to meet our requirements,” said Yandex PR Director Vladimir Isaev in an exchange with East-West Digital News.
The Yandex.Delivery offer reincarnates MultiShip, an analogous shipment service aggregator which Yandex acquired in early 2014. However, a few months later, the two companies put an end to their partnership due to diverging views on business and strategy.
The MultiShip technology has been used as a basis to develop Yandex.Delivery, Isaev said.
Currently Yandex.market displays 20 million offers from more than 18,000 online stores.
