E-Commerce Surge Amidst the Pandemic: Russia’s 30 Most Popular Online Retailers of 2020
Brand Analytics recently released a ranking of the most discussed e-commerce companies among Russian-language social media users in 2020.
The lockdown imposed during the pandemic served as a catalyst for the growth of e-commerce, solidifying the positions of online retailers in the Russian economy and transforming consumer behavior. The surge in demand for online shopping led to a significant increase in conversations about these retailers, with a staggering 26 million messages mentioning the participants of the ranking throughout the year.
Rating Leaders
Taking the top spot in the ranking is AliExpress, which dominated discussions with over 12.42 million mentions. This internet giant has evolved from a platform for ordering a few phone cases to a formidable marketplace, showcasing its commitment to the Russian market through the establishment of AliExpress Russia in collaboration with Alibaba Group, Mail.ru Group, MegaFon, and the Russian Direct Investment Fund in 2019.
Securing the second position is Ozon, often referred to as the “Amazon of Russia.” The company had a successful year, experiencing a remarkable 130% increase in order quantity during the first nine months of 2020 compared to the same period in 2019. The company’s growth trajectory continued with an 84% surge in accounts from April to May 2020. To further consolidate its position, Ozon completed a highly successful IPO on the NASDAQ exchange in late November, surpassing experts’ expectations. This achievement aligns with the public’s interest, as evidenced by 2.25 million mentions throughout the year, securing the second spot in the ranking.
Claiming the third position is Wildberries, a popular online marketplace, with 1.96 million mentions. With over 1.4 million daily orders, the platform offers a wide range of products, including food, home appliances, and even airline tickets. Notably, discussions about Wildberries were most prevalent among VKontakte users, accounting for 52% of the total number of messages.
While it’s no surprise to see marketplaces dominating the top rankings, some unexpected contenders have also emerged. Online bookstore Labirint.ru secured the fifth spot, benefiting from consumers’ interest in reading and their strong presence on social media. In fact, Labirint.ru outshone delivery agents like Eda.Yandex (7th place) and Delivery Club (12th place) in terms of mentions. Another noteworthy presence is Sokolov, a jewelry brand, occupying the 15th position. The company’s active marketing efforts allowed it to surpass e-commerce celebrities such as Lamoda (16th), M.Video (18th), and Gold Apple (23rd) in terms of brand mentions.
Fluctuating Interest in Online Shopping: Tracking Changes Throughout the Year
In our analysis of the dynamic ranking of e-commerce goods categories, we chose to exclude data on marketplaces to focus on specific category dynamics. It is worth noting that marketplace mentions showed minimal variation in 2020. So, which categories experienced an upswing, and which ones lost favor among consumers?
Food retailing exhibited significant growth, particularly in the second half of 2020, rather than during the spring lockdown. Starting the year with a monthly average of 26,000 messages, interest in online food purchasing peaked in October with 114,000 mentions.
Towards the end of the year, a final surge pushed food delivery to dominate the month, with the category receiving nearly 133,000 mentions in December. Throughout the year, the interest in Delivery Club and Eda.Yandex fluctuated but began showing consistent growth only in September 2020.
The electronics category initially experienced a decline but recovered demand by late spring and early summer. In the second half of the year, discussions about electronics remained stable on social media. Children’s goods maintained a stable level of interest throughout the year, while books experienced a noticeable uptick during the first wave of quarantine restrictions.
However, there were categories that faced losses, with users’ interest fluctuating and declining over time. Fashion shopping experienced the most significant drop, starting the year with 170,000 monthly mentions but dwindling to only 68,000 messages by December. Wellness and household goods also noted a decline, despite the boost usually seen during seasonal sales and the traditional increase in attention during the New Year holidays.
2020 E-commerce Category Rankings: Unveiling Popular Online Retailers
The category with the highest number of mentions in the e-commerce landscape was Marketplaces, securing 7 positions and accumulating a staggering 19.34 million messages throughout the year. Within this category, e-commerce platforms emerged as the rating leaders, with 6 representatives dominating the Top 10 list of popular online retailers. AliExpress (1), Ozon (2), Wildberries (3), Sima Land (4), Yandex.Market (6), Ebay (11), and goods.ru (30) were the top choices for users seeking a wide range of attractively priced goods, conveniently available in one place. Regular offers, discounts, competitive pricing, and product variety were key factors that appealed to users.
Books also witnessed a significant surge in interest, representing 2 positions in the rankings. The lockdown presented a unique opportunity for self-development, leading to a second Renaissance for books. Russian-speaking online users contributed 1.35 million messages, mentioning Labirint.ru (5) and LitRes (8), the largest online bookstores. People actively shared links to their favorite books and published literature selections for various occasions.
The Electronics and Household Appliances category, comprising 5 positions, showcased the largest players from the offline segment who transitioned from traditional brick-and-mortar businesses with physical stores, checkout lines, and sales assistants clad in corporate polo shirts. M.Video (18), Citilink (19), Eldorado (20), DNS (21), and Svyaznoy (22) collectively garnered 1.1 million mentions.
Interestingly, this category represents a neck-and-neck competition, lacking a clear leader. The absence of a dominant player indicates intense competition where users make their choices based on more favorable conditions and offers from different shops.
Exploring E-commerce Development Trends: (No) Man is an Island
Marketplaces have remained at the forefront, consistently offering buyers a comfortable shopping experience, a wide variety of products, competitive pricing, and convenient delivery options. Their popularity has surged, benefiting both marketplaces and brands. Leveraging distribution and effective sales through these channels has become a vital element of survival for brands, although not the sole strategy.
The second trend revolves around substantial investments in direct online sales, the establishment of dark stores, and the enhancement of delivery services.
The third trend involves mergers, acquisitions, and the emergence of dominant players in the market.
Data Calculation Specifics of Brand Analytics:
To conduct the rating analysis, over 28 billion Russian-language messages from various social media platforms such as VKontakte, Odnoklassniki, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, as well as blogs, forums, review sites, public messenger channels, and news article comments, were analyzed. The period covered was from January 1 to December 31, 2020.
The rating participants were online retailers that enabled purchasing and delivery of goods within Russia, with interfaces available in Russian. The analysis considered the popularity of all companies listed in the Top 100 largest Russian online stores, as published by Data Insight, along with the popularity of several emerging industry players. Companies offering digital multimedia content, such as music and movies, were not included.
For companies operating both online and offline, only messages related to online sales were taken into account when assessing popularity. The rating results are influenced by a company’s popularity among users as well as its marketing activities.