With sales of nearly 4 billion yuan, Russian building materials retailer Petrovich's online sales have exploded

Yevgeny Movchan, general manager of the Petrovich shopping center network, said that Petrovich's e-commerce sales reached 44 billion rubles (about 3.78 billion yuan) in 2020.

At the same time, e-commerce sales accounted for a record 73% of the company's total retail share. For the first time, e-commerce sales exceeded its offline sales. Much of the sales growth in online channels came from the influx of new customers.

Yevgeny said: " Last year, Petrovich's business grew mainly due to the influx of new customers, which increased by 42%. During the quarantine period, Petrovich turned to e-commerce channels and sought opportunities to sell construction and decoration materials remotely. As a result, the sales indicators of Petrovich's website, application and call center have increased."

Regarding the rapid development of e-commerce, Yevgeny exaggeratedly said that "the epidemic has 'swallowed' five years of transformation to a digital system." He believes that the epidemic has strengthened the status of e-commerce, enhanced the role of online stores and the importance of digital services.

With the dual support of offline and online channels, Petrovich's turnover last year reached 73.5 billion rubles (about 6.31 billion yuan), a year-on-year increase of 23.7% compared to 2019.

Of course, Petrovich is not the only one to achieve business growth. Wildberries, Russia's largest e-commerce platform, said that last year, the platform's sales of repair products increased by 681% year-on-year, and sales revenue increased by 605% year-on-year to 3.3 billion rubles.

Data Insight data shows that the order volume of the Russian household and repair supplies e-commerce market reached 29.5 million last year, a year-on-year increase of 77%; the transaction volume reached 277 billion rubles (about 23.8 billion yuan), a year- on-year increase of 58%. Experts analyzed that the reason for the growth of this market is mainly related to the impact of the epidemic and the merchants' active establishment of their own online businesses.

Despite the explosive growth in e-commerce sales, Petrovich has not completely given up on the idea of ​​offline channels. It is reported that Petrovich plans to build a new shopping mall next to the Dmitrovskoye Highway in Moscow this year.

Petrovich was founded in St. Petersburg in 1995 and specializes in the trade of building materials. The company owns 20 shopping centers, 1 metal warehouse and production bases in St. Petersburg, Moscow, etc. The product range includes more than 30,000 SKUs.

Russia