Earlier this month VkusVill, Russia’s number one health foods brand and a leading player in e-grocery, opened its first cashierless store in Moscow. To make a purchase, customers scan a QR code in their VkusVill mobile app when they enter the store, then select the items they need and exit through a special turnstile. Payment is …
X5 Retail Group, a leading Russian food retailer listed on the Moscow and London stock exchanges, is launching an international joint program with Plug and Play to scout for innovative approaches to sustainable development. The program will focus on reducing waste and greenhouse gas emissions as well as sustainable packaging. It will start in the …
X5 Group teams up with Plug and Play to bring more sustainability to Russian retail Read More
The pandemic has had an unprecedented impact on retail and delivery markets. In Russia, e-grocery was among the most impacted industries: the number of orders in this segment increased by 174% y-o-y in the first half of 2021, according to Data Insight. Fast delivery has become one of the main trends in the food sector …
How the pandemic has impacted retail, logistics and delivery in Russia Read More
Russian consumer electronics major M.Video-Eldorado Group announces today the full acquisition of online lending platform Direct Credit as part of its strategy to develop its “promising fintech business.” The transaction amounted to 1.3 billion rubles (nearly $18 million at the current exchange rate). Direct Credit services will be integrated into in the group’s fast-growing OneRetail platform, both online …
M.Video, a part of the M.Video–Eldorado consumer electronics retail group, now processes nearly half of customer calls via a virtual assistant called ‘Alyona.’ “Voice processing technologies have enabled [us] to reduce the workload of [our] contact center staff, reduce response times and increase customer satisfaction and loyalty,” the company says. The AI-based robotic customer support system …
M.Video uses high tech to automate CRM, raise service level and track employee attendance Read More
X5 Retail Group, a leading Russian food retailer listed on the Moscow and London stock exchanges, has acquired a dark kitchen company called Mnogo Lososya (‘A Lot of Salmon’). The group’s head Igor Shekhterman revealed the transaction earlier this week in a media interview, without providing any financial details. “While we see great potential in this business, we didn’t have …
In late March Moscow startup Briskly raised $3 million from Maxim Poletaev and Gauss Ventures alongside two unnamed new investors. Poletaev, a former Sber executive, and Gauss, a Cayman-based fund with Russian connections, backed Briskly from the very beginning, with a $370,000 injection in 2019. The deal came just five months after a previous $2 million round — and is preceding a new …
The 4th edition of Fashion Tech Day, Russia’s leading conference on fashion retail tech and e-commerce, will be held in an offline and offline format in Moscow Expocenter. More than 2,000 participants are expected, including hundreds attending the physical event. Co-organized by East-West Digital News, the event will involve a variety of fashion brands, retailers …
Moscow-based IT company Hot-WiFi has announced its entry on the US market. The Russian startup offers businesses a guest WiFi hotspot network with marketing functions and data analytics services. This approach may increase the turnover of a coffee shop, for example, by 10% as shown by a business case in Moscow. Founded in 2012, Hot-WiFi has …
Russian WiFi marketing startup makes first steps in US market Read More
Russia’s Yandex has started using its self-driving robot to deliver fast food orders, the company announced Wednesday. The small six-wheeled autonomous robot — dubbed Yandex Rover — has started delivering orders from Yandex’s food delivery service, Yandex Eats, to customers in one of Moscow’s central business districts. Just like a human courier, after an order …
Over the last years, X5 Retail Group, a leading Russian food retailer listed on the London and Moscow stock exchanges, has undertaken a process of deep digital transformation from procurement automation, to facial recognition, to video analytics. As Head of X5 Technologies, Anton Mironenkov, leads a team of some 2,500 professionals. In this interview with …
Moscow startup Briskly has raised $2 million to finance its first international projects and strengthen its positions in Russia. Sberbank executive Maxim Poletaev and Gauss Ventures, a Cayman-based fund with Russian connections, are among the investors alongside an unnamed British venture fund and another private investor. Poletaev and Gauss Ventures already put $370,000 in the …
