Russia's top 2 cross-border platforms open new sites to Chinese sellers!

In the first half of this year, China's cross-border e-commerce imports and exports reached 1.22 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 10.5%, exceeding the growth rate of the total value of goods trade imports and exports in the same period.

The strength of Chinese sellers and Chinese manufacturing can be said to be increasingly valued by major overseas e-commerce platforms, and Ozon, known as the "Amazon" of Russia, is no exception.

Continuing to focus on "Made in China", the platform opens new markets to Chinese sellers

Ozon was founded in 1998 and is one of the earliest e-commerce platforms in Russia. According to data from the Russian Federal Antimonopoly Service, Ozon's market share reached 35.5%, and together with Wildberries (47%), it occupies more than 80% of Russia's e-commerce market.

In the third quarter of this year, Ozon's GMV reached 718.3 billion rubles (about 7.226 billion U.S. dollars), a year-on-year increase of 59%; e-commerce revenue increased by 31% year-on-year to 135.8 billion rubles (1.366 billion U.S. dollars). In addition, the platform's active buyers also increased by 26% to 53.5 million; the number of orders increased by 48% year-on-year to 371.5 million pieces.

While major cross-border platforms are working hard to attract Chinese sellers, Ozon is also working hard, opening two sites to Chinese sellers in six months, the latest of which is Belarus.

According to foreign media reports, on Ozon, Belarusian consumers can now purchase more than 10 million Chinese products directly from Chinese sellers . These products cover more than 20 categories such as clothing, shoes, electronic products and furniture ; and in December, the variety of products will double again.

The report also mentioned that Ozon will provide free delivery services to Belarusian consumers, and the current (initial) delivery cycle is 3-4 weeks.

At the end of July this year , Ozon also opened its Kazakhstan site to Chinese sellers. There are about 5 million kinds of goods; in Kazakhstan, the platform also provides users with free delivery services throughout the country.

According to Ozon Belarus's general manager, Chinese products are very popular in the CIS countries (CIS countries include Russia, Belarus, Moldova, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan) .

It is reported that the reason for the popularity is closely related to the price. The average price of "Made in China" is 15% lower than similar products in other countries. In addition, due to the long delivery cycle, these (Chinese) products will not bring substantial competitive pressure to local manufacturers.

In fact, in June this year , Ozon announced the " CIS Market Sales Plan ", and the opening of Kazakhstan and Belarus sites was part of the plan.

Why was Kazakhstan the first to open? According to Ozon’s announcement, Central Asia is recognized as one of the fastest growing e-commerce markets in the world, and Kazakhstan is the largest economy in Central Asia.

The revenue of Kazakhstan's e-commerce market reached $5.1 billion in 2023 and is expected to grow by 187% by the end of 2024. In addition, Kazakhstan's population has exceeded 20 million, of which 500,000 are loyal users of Ozon.

At the same time, China is one of Kazakhstan's largest trading partners. According to statistics last year, trade between the two countries increased by 30% to $31.5 billion.

Although Belarus has a population of only 9.2 million (2023 data), the bilateral trade volume between China and Belarus exceeded US$8.44 billion last year, a year-on-year increase of 66.2%; China's exports to Belarus reached US$5.84 billion, a year-on-year increase of 78.3%.

In addition, according to data provided by Ozon's Belarus spokesperson, in the first half of this year, the number of Ozon's active buyers in Belarus has more than doubled compared with the same period last year; the number of site orders has also more than tripled in the first half of this year.

From a win-win perspective, the love of consumers in both countries for "Made in China" + the development potential of the Ozon platform not only provide market opportunities for Chinese sellers, but also provide a favorable "weapon" for platform expansion.

There are more than 500,000 sellers on the platform , of which Chinese sellers account for more than 20%.

Ozon has been working hard to develop its cross-border business since 2020, and Chinese sellers are also an important target of the platform.

As early as November 2022, Ozon established its China headquarters office in Shenzhen and said it would step up efforts to attract Chinese sellers; the platform plans to attract more than 100,000 Chinese sellers by the end of 2024 and increase the turnover from Chinese sellers by 10 times. At that time, Ozon had only 12,000 registered sellers, of which 10,000 were Chinese sellers.

According to public data, by the end of 2023, the number of sellers on Ozon has reached more than 500,000, of which more than 100,000 are Chinese sellers, accounting for more than 20%; the number of active Chinese sellers has increased by 2.5 times year-on-year.

Compared with 2022, the total sales of Chinese sellers in 2023 increased by 3 times, and the number of orders increased by 5 times. By the end of 2023, more than 60 million Chinese products will be available for purchase by platform customers.

At the same time, in Ozon's cross-border business (platform stores are divided into local stores and cross-border stores, and cross-border business mainly refers to cross-border stores), about 90% of the goods come from Chinese sellers, and the number of active sellers has exceeded 10,000.

During the big promotion in November 2023, the platform's total sales exceeded 30 billion rubles (about US$300 million), of which Chinese sellers accounted for 11% of sales; a year-on-year increase of 270% compared with the big promotion in November 2022, making them the fastest growing group of sellers on the platform.

The latest report from foreign media mentioned that the number of Chinese sellers on Ozon has exceeded 130,000. These sellers delivered about 20 million orders to platform users in the first half of 2024. In the second quarter of this year, the turnover of Chinese sellers on the platform increased by 2.6 times compared with last year.

In terms of the number of sellers, the platform has already completed its goal set for 2022. In order to attract Chinese sellers, the platform can be said to have put a lot of thought into it.

This year, in addition to the two new sites that were recently opened, Ozon Global also announced that it would reduce the sales commission of all categories of sellers in China by 50% throughout November to welcome this year's 11.11 and "Black Friday"; the commission for electronic product sellers shipping from Ozon's cooperative warehouses was reduced to 1%.

Of course, Chinese sellers do not have it all smooth sailing on the platform .

First, the delayed payment notice issued by the platform in March made all Chinese sellers sweat, and it was not until June that sellers gradually received their payments .

The sellers had just breathed a sigh of relief about the payment collection issue, but then the platform announced sales restrictions on Chinese sellers on the platform in the three major categories of electronic products, automobiles and motorcycles, and DIY tools .

Although the platform said that these sellers can still operate other categories and announced a sales plan for the CIS market, the category restrictions are still a big blow to the affected domestic sellers. Fortunately, the category restrictions were lifted at the end of August.

However, the platform has recently issued a new return notice for cross-border stores, stating that if the buyer returns the poor quality goods directly to the address specified by the seller, the seller will be responsible for the return fee . The return fee will be deducted directly from the seller's account by the platform . This undoubtedly brings a considerable burden to cross-border store sellers. When returning goods across borders, the shipping fee is often even higher than the goods themselves.

No matter what, a platform with potential is a new opportunity for sellers. But sellers must think carefully before entering a new platform and not rush into it . For example, Ozon recently launched a deposit policy for new and inactive sellers, which is applicable to sellers who have no sales records for at least one year or have outstanding balances on the platform in the past two months. Therefore, when sellers plan to enter a new platform, they must not only have an understanding of the target market, but also have a good understanding of the platform's characteristics and policies.

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