Chinese and Russian Internet retailers: friendship is friendship, and money is apart

    Judging by the research of Nielsen marketing company, the Chinese e-commerce market reached $ 2 trillion in 2014. Given the strong growth, the Russian e-commerce market this year will at best be able to reach a volume of $ 13 billion.

    Following the results of 2014, China ranked first in retail sales in the world of Internet commerce, leading figures of Nielsen «Nezavisimaya Gazeta". China's e-commerce has maintained high growth over the past 10 years.

    Russian online commerce is also developing at a relatively fast pace. According to the Data Insight analytical agency, the online trading in tangible goods amounted to 560 billion rubles in 2014. At the same time, another 85 billion rubles last year accounted for the cross-border e-commerce segment. Thus, the expenses of Russians for the purchase of tangible goods in online stores in 2014 amounted to 645 billion rubles (or about $ 10 billion).

    The growth in online sales of goods in Russian online stores in 2014 amounted to 35%. Taking into account purchases made by Russians in foreign online stores, this figure for the year increased by more than 40%.

    “The Internet trading market in Russia is growing annually by 20–25%. According to the results of 2014, it amounted to $ 10 billion, and this year it may already be $ 13 billion, ”said the head of the Federal Customs Service (FCS) Andrei Belyaninov.

    Meanwhile, Chinese online retailers do not plan to stop expansion in Russia. At the end of October, AliExpress rival - the major Chinese online retailer JD.com - announced that it expects to occupy 60% of the Russian online trading market in the future.

    But, given the small size of the Russian Internet retailing market, it can be difficult for Chinese companies to integrate into the Russian infrastructure, look for partners or create their own logistics networks here with fast delivery. Therefore, Russian online and offline retailers still have a number of competitive advantages over Chinese and are looking for new opportunities for development.

    On October 23, a coupon campaign was launched on the Russian-language site JD.com, within which a new user of the site during registration could receive a coupon of $ 10. Soon after, the action was interrupted. A few hours later, the user of the IT resource geektimes.ru Yuri Yuriev saidJD.com security crash: “A hole has been detected in the JD.com system. By following a simple and obvious link, anyone could see a list of other people's orders. If you go into any order, you can see customer data: names, addresses, phone numbers and more. ”

    As a result, data from 3,000 to 5,000 people were publicly available. The problem was later resolved. According to representatives of JD.com in Russia, the hacker attack was to blame .

    Intends to expand its presence in the Russian Federation and the Chinese company Alibaba(which structure includes AliExpress). This, in particular, was previously announced by First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov. The online store AliExpress announced its intention to sell cars in Russia. On November 11, 2015, the site will take the first step in this direction - it will begin selling discount coupons for cars of the Chinese brand Lifan. The corresponding agreement was signed today in Moscow by Lifan Motors CEO Sun Tsejun and AliExpress Head in Russia Mark Zavadsky.

    “Lifan already sells cars over the Internet in China - and more than successfully. Online shopping in Russia is also very popular, including directly from the Middle Kingdom, ”Tsejun said at the event, talking about the reasons for the new partnership. He also mentioned that Lifan's online sales in China totaled 1,000 cars in 2015.

    Yevgeny Mozhaev, Commercial Director of ZhelDorExpedition, believes that Russia, despite the economic crisis, remains a promising market, but the Chinese are losing their competitive price advantage due to long delivery. As a result, Mozhaev believes, Russian online stores will receive a powerful competitor and will be forced to lower prices and unite with each other.

    Retailers know that their consumer pays attention to prices, and seek to reduce them, bringing them to the same in online stores. “As a result, if the difference in the price tag for a particular product is insignificant between a regular and an online store, the consumer will rather overpay, but will take the goods in a store of a brand he knows,” the representative of AKORT assures .

    The Internet is creating a hybrid trading model that uses online and offline technologies. This hybrid model is especially effective for promoting virtual goods and services - for example, ordering food or places in restaurants, as well as selling beauty services, says Victor Xu.

    On the other hand, Russian business might also be interested in the potential opportunity to enter the Chinese market, Mozhaev claims. “This could be one of the incentives for business activity for us,” the expert believes. True, so far, in addition to food and jewelry, we have nothing to offer. The devaluation of the ruble serves as an incentive to enter new markets, but the Chinese consumer is already spoiled by low prices, and it will be extremely difficult to take its place in this niche, he said.

    The head of Alibaba, Jack Ma, proposed several projects to create logistics centers in the country. It is assumed that in this way the Chinese can buy Russian goods through the Internet, which will then be stored in special centers and then delivered to Chinese consumers.

    Alibaba and JD.com have already agreed to work for export from Russia. Chinese consumers are interested in such categories of products as chocolate and sweets, nuts, vegetable oil, honey, products from mushrooms and berries, cereals, baby food.

    The Tmall Global site , owned by the Alibaba Group, has been looking for since Februaryin Russia online stores for the supply of food and cosmetics to China. In particular, negotiations were held with the producer of mineral water “Narzan” and the distributor of food products “Mistral”.

    The Russian representative office of AliExpress believes that the Chinese consumer may also be interested in Russian cosmetics, pasteurized milk, condensed milk, nuts, preserves, gingerbread cookies, dryers and other food products with a shelf life of three months or more. Six months later, in the Middle Kingdom they plan to open warehouses that will allow exporting Russian sausage.

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