September 16, 2009
By the ZippyCart Shopping Carts Content Team
The selection of Internet retailers in Russia is limited with the market being very fragmented. This is one of the key reasons why Russia’s leading retailer in terms of sales, plans to become the number one Internet retailer as well. You can think of it as X5 trying to become the Amazon of Russia that everyone uses to make purchases online. At the latest X5 is looking to jump into the ecommerce game no later than 2010. Yet another example of a company expanding during an economic recession to try and maintain growth and possible increase market share.
Currently the ecommerce landscape in Russia is not very competitive, with only one well-known online retailer. Their main competition is Ozon.ru which launched about 10 years ago and last year generated just over $100 million in sales. Currently X5 is primarily focused on retail sales of groceries, but the online expansion will allow them to grow their offerings and become more like Amazon.com. Some of the early plans include books and electronics in addition to being able to buy groceries from X5. The up hill battle X5 will face is that Russia still does not have wide spread broadband Internet usage with less than 10% of the 140 million residents having a high speed connection. Another battle will be that not everyone in Russia has or uses credit cards online. Many are still scarred about security as online shopping is still somewhat foreign to many residents of Russia.
Amy is the co-founder of ZippyCart. She went to school for film in Cleveland, Ohio and ended up working in the field of viral video marketing, which eventually led her to her real profession: SEO. When she's not writing for ZippyCart, she can be found out and about Seattle, WA.
