Mobile phone retailer Svyaznoy allows sellers to settle in, adding another player to Russia's e-commerce battle!

Svyaznoy is the second largest independent mobile phone retailer in Russia , with more than 2,900 offline stores in Russia and Belarus. Svyaznoy has its own official website, where consumers can also purchase mobile phones and accessories online.

It is reported that Svyaznoy's e-commerce function is divided into two sales modes. The first is that Svyaznoy purchases goods from partners after receiving orders. The second is that partners transport goods to Svyaznoy for direct sales, and can recycle goods when there is no market demand. The delivery time under the two different sales modes is also different.

Sources said Svyaznoy may later charge sales commissions to partners, who currently account for only 2% of all Svyaznoy online sales.

Svyaznoy has been expanding its product categories for many years and entered the large household appliances market in 2020. So far, the platform products have covered more than 80 categories including maintenance supplies, office supplies, automotive supplies, epidemic prevention supplies, children's products, electronic products, etc.

Regarding Svyaznoy's move to launch e-commerce functions, some experts analyzed that due to the decline in smartphone sales, the previous mobile phone store format like Svyaznoy is no longer efficient. Mobile Research Group analyst Eldar Murtazin said that stores specializing in selling smartphones have become less and less popular , and the role of sales consultants is gradually weakening because consumers prefer to choose products themselves.

Mikhail Burmistrov , CEO of INOFLine Analytics , also said that before the outbreak of the epidemic, mobile phone retail stores were already facing a decline in smartphone sales , leading to a reduction in the number of stores.

For mobile operators, maintaining the traditional mobile phone store format is still effective, but for mobile phone or electronics retailers like Svyaznoy, it is far from enough. Only by creating their own e-commerce path can they hope to break through and get a piece of the pie in the 237.1 billion RMB Russian e-commerce market , and Svyaznoy is not the first example.

At the end of last year, Yandex.Market, owned by Russian Internet giant Yandex, launched an e-commerce platform function and gave priority to displaying the products of settled sellers. At the end of last month, Russian classified advertising website Avito also accepted sellers to settle in, and transactions were conducted directly on the platform. It is reported that Russian home appliance retailer M.Video-Eldorado has also recently developed its own e-commerce function.

Mikhail believes that the launch of e-commerce platform functions will help Svyaznoy improve the effectiveness of converting online traffic and increase the average order amount.

Russia

E-commerce