The world's top 9 e-commerce platforms are fully open to Chinese sellers!

As the year draws to a close, another major event has occurred in the Russian cross-border circle.

Russia's largest e-commerce platform fully opens to Chinese sellers

Last week, Wildberries, Russia's largest e-commerce platform , officially announced that it has completed the testing period with Chinese sellers. Now everyone can freely join the platform and sell high-quality products from China to Russian consumers .

According to data, Wildberries was founded in 2004 and is known as the Russian version of Taobao (also known as the Russian version of JD.com). It is the largest online retail platform in Russia . The platform has more than 50 million registered users , an average daily order volume of more than 10 million, and a GMV of about 500 billion yuan in 2023. Its business scope covers Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan.

According to a study of major global e-commerce platforms released by Data Insight in the first half of the year, Wildberries users have an average of 343 million visits per month, ranking 9th; according to statistics from traffic statistics website SimilarWeb in early June, Wildberries also ranked 9th with 410 million monthly visits. In Russia, Wildberries users cover 85% of the total population.

The platform's best-selling products also cover all aspects of Russian consumers' daily lives, including clothing and accessories, beauty and personal care, home and furniture, food and beverages, electronic products, maternal and child products, sports and outdoor products, etc. Clothing and accessories, in particular, are one of the most popular categories of goods on the platform. According to research data from the JVO integrated e-commerce management platform and the CATAN market category analysis system, compared with the same period last year, Wildberries' sales in the women's clothing category alone increased by 17 billion rubles (1.232 billion yuan) this year.

Last September, the platform opened the international site beta test function to Chinese sellers, who could register through whitelist invitations and $10 million in Amazon turnover. In the first half of this year, industry insiders speculated that the platform might fully open up to Chinese sellers this year. Just when the editor thought that the full opening would not be until next year, the platform suddenly announced the news.

(Source: WILDBERRIES e-commerce platform official account)

According to the platform's notification, the official opening is quite different from the internal test: Wildberries' official opening has removed the restrictions on gross merchandise volume (GMV), opened advertising accounts and promotional calendars, and introduced genuine product labels. The platform has also responded to the previously exposed payment collection problem, setting up a fund withdrawal function and integrating multiple payment systems. At the same time, the platform has also resumed the weekly settlement function .

According to current information, both legal entities and individual businesses can register, the overall registration process is relatively simple, and the information provided is also some common information.

However, after the seller completes the registration, there are conditions for activating the account - a license fee of RMB 10,000 needs to be paid. After the payment is completed, the activation process takes 3 working days (usually faster).

According to the platform, this fee can filter out spam and bad sellers, and the 10,000 yuan will be returned to the seller in another form: after the seller's account is activated, the platform will transfer the deposit to the seller's advertising account balance in three stages, totaling 120,000 points, which the seller can use to promote their products on the platform. It is worth mentioning that according to the news circulating on the Internet, the deposit can only be paid through WeChat or Alipay.

As for the delivery method, Wildberries currently supports two: one is self-delivery by the seller, and the cooperating logistics companies include Guoo, UNI, CEL, etc.; the other is delivery from the official designated overseas warehouse, which is also the difference from Ozon.

Opportunities and sellers’ concerns

At present, the scale of Russian e-commerce is constantly expanding. At this year's Eastern Economic Forum, Artyom Sokolov, chairman of the Russian Association of E-Commerce Companies (AKIT), said that the turnover of the Russian e-commerce market will double in the next three years to 18 trillion rubles (about 129.225 billion yuan) or even more.

Therefore, the news that Wildberries is fully open to the market is undoubtedly good news for sellers interested in the Russian market.

However, the platform's 10,000 yuan advertising fee still discourages many sellers. Compared with its rival Ozon's 2,400 yuan deposit, Wildberries' 10,000 yuan "advertising fee" is much higher. In addition, the platform's minimum withdrawal threshold of 10,000 yuan has also discouraged some sellers. In comparison, Ozon's withdrawal threshold is 1,000 US dollars (about 7,299.27 yuan).

However, many sellers believe that Wildberries’ high threshold is necessary, otherwise problems such as copycat sales may occur like Ozon.

It is worth mentioning that Wildberries' warehouses, like Amazon's popular warehouses, also have the problem of overload. According to foreign media reports, Wildberries' warehouses in Moscow and surrounding areas have recently been overloaded, which has caused sellers to have a scarce schedule for delivery, "almost a race against time to grab a delivery spot." In order to cope with the problem of overloaded warehouses, Wildberries is also actively investing in the construction of new logistics facilities. In the next year, Wildberries plans to build nearly 2 million square meters of storage space in Russia and the CIS countries.

In addition to the platform itself, many sellers also have certain concerns about the Russian e-commerce market, such as logistics issues and payment collection issues.

According to statistics from relevant Russian practitioners, it usually takes 1-3 weeks for consumers to receive goods from the platform after placing an order . The delivery time for Russian local sellers is usually 1-7 days . Some sellers also said, "It takes 15 days to get to Moscow, and then it will be distributed to other (places)... It will take about a month on the road." Therefore, in terms of delivery time alone, Chinese sellers do not have an advantage over Russian local sellers.

In addition, the current international geopolitical situation and economic sanctions against Russia by various countries have greatly increased the financial risks of business with Russia. For example, the large-scale payment delays of Wildberries and Ozon a while ago still make many sellers feel sad when they think about it now . Even though many sellers have solved the problem of collecting payments by registering stores and opening accounts in Russia, they will still encounter various troubles in the subsequent payment collection and settlement. In addition, the ruble has fluctuated sharply in recent times, and the loss of exchange rate has also made many sellers worry about their profits.

However, in order to reassure Chinese sellers, Russian platforms have also been making efforts. In addition to Wildberries, Ozon is also actively building logistics facilities. At the same time, after testing multiple payment channels, the payment collection of both platforms has now returned to normal.

In general, Wildberries' open registration is an opportunity for Chinese sellers, but whether the platform and market are suitable for sellers to enter still requires sellers to make prudent decisions based on their own resource allocation, market insights and risk tolerance.

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