Online sales in Russia increased by 1.5 times in 1st half of 2022
Source：Vedomosti
From：Taiwan Trade Center, Moscow
Update Time：2022/10/02
The increase of online sales is due to the decrease of purchases in shopping centers. One of the trends of the coming year is the growing dominance of universal marketplaces in all categories.
Russians spent 2.3 trillion rubles on online purchases in the first half of 2022, which is 1.5 times more than a year earlier, the Association of Internet Trade Companies (AKIT) calculated. According to its representative, against this background, online sales on foreign sites, on the contrary, decreased by 27% year-on-year to 103 billion rubles. As a result, the share of e-commerce in total retail sales increased from 8.8% to 11.2%. Similar estimates from the Infoline-analytics agency: 2.4 trillion rubles was spent by Russians on the purchase of goods online (excluding the delivery of ready-made food from restaurants) in the first half of the year.
On the Internet, they buy mainly electronics and household appliances (22% of all orders), furniture and household goods (17.7%), clothes and shoes (13.9%), food (13.5%), beauty products and health (7.5%) - these categories, according to ACIT, account for more than two-thirds of all online purchases. Of the total volume, non-food products accounted for 1.97 trillion rubles. (+52%), and for products - more than 300 billion rubles. (almost twice as much as in January-June 2021), says a representative of Infoline Analytics. According to Mikhail Burmistrov, General Director of this agency, the most dynamic growth over this period was demonstrated by multi-category marketplaces - Wildberries, Ozon, Yandex.Market, AliExpress and Sbermegamarket. Their online sales market share was 39.7% in 2021, rising to 47.9% in the first half of 2022.
Ozon does not comment on the results of the first half of the year before the publication of financial statements, a company spokesman said.
Earlier, a representative of Wildberries said that in the first half of 2022, the turnover of the marketplace increased by 94% year-on-year, to 628.7 billion rubles, and in units of goods, sales growth was 77%. It follows from the reporting of Yandex.Market that e-commerce, taxi and delivery services brought the group 123.1 billion rubles. in the first half of 2022, which is 107% more than a year earlier.
Purchasing power in online channels not only remained, but even grew significantly due to instability in traditional retail, explains Artem Sokolov, president of ACIT. He recalls that shopping centers are faced with a reduction in the range and the departure of a number of foreign brands, while on Internet sites, product offers remain in sufficient quantity, there are brands familiar to consumers and new brands, manufacturers and importers are coming. The flow of buyers from offline to online turned out to be so powerful that online commerce maintained a positive trend even with a deep recession in the retail market, adds Data Insight partner Boris Ovchinnikov. But, in his opinion, only individual players will be the beneficiaries of this continued growth.
One of the trends for the next year, according to Ovchinnikov, is the growing dominance of universal marketplaces in all categories, except for food and pharmaceuticals. At the same time, the “race of online retailers” can quickly come down to a battle between the two leaders. And against the backdrop of a reduction in investment by market players in logistics, in attracting buyers and sellers, the importance of such a factor as the already accumulated fame, which is highest among Wildberries and Ozon, will grow, the expert argues.
Internet sales for the whole year are expected at the level of 5.8 trillion rubles, says Ovchinnikov. Burmistrov allows growth to 6 trillion rubles, which is 45% more than last year. Forecasts for the second half of 2022 will depend on whether the players manage to establish stable supplies from Russian manufacturers, and not just through parallel import channels, says Ivan Kurguzov, head of the e-commerce cluster of the Russian Association for Electronic Communications. He predicts the strongest growth in the next six months to a year in the grocery and medical delivery segments, especially if prescription drugs are allowed to be delivered home. He expects explosive growth in the alcohol delivery segment, if it is also allowed.
Source: https://www.vedomosti.ru/business/articles/2022/08/10/935478-onlain-prodazhi-rossii-virosli?utm_campaign=newspaper_11_8_2022&utm_medium=email&utm_source=vedomosti