Ozon Holdings, one of the first e-commerce companies in Russia, aims to take advantage of China’s Double 11 Shopping Festival via promotions worth tens of billions of rubles to boost cross-border business.
Ozon will offer subsidies during the annual shopping extravaganza in China from Oct. 18 to Nov. 13, Simon Huang, China president of the Moscow-based firm, said during the 2023 Global China Summit on October 19.
The internet company will also launch Black Friday promotions late next month. Sales turnover during the whole peak season is expected to increase by more than four times from a year earlier.
Ozon is one of the top two e-commerce platforms in Russia with RUB832.2 billion (USD8.6 billion) in gross merchandise value last year. The firm listed 38 million new stock-keeping units from China with 40,000 Chinese sellers on the platform. Orders for China-made goods surged by about six times from the previous year, while the GMV soared by about seven times.
For next year, the firm will set a goal of boosting GMV in China by four times from this year, helping 100,000 Chinese sellers to earn a profit, Huang added.
Growth is supported by increasingly efficient delivery and strong brands. The number of users has surged, customs clearance and logistics are quicker, and import tariffs are low. Moreover, Chinese consumer electronics and smart home appliances are of high quality, fashion manufacturers are quick to respond to new trends while merchants are active on the platform.
The two nations are getting closer in trade. In the first nine months of this year, trade between China and Russia jumped by 30 percent to USD176.4 billion from a year ago, per Xu Poling, director of the Institute of East European, Russian and Central Asian Studies, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
More specifically, China’s exports to Russia surged by 57 percent to USD81.4 billion, while its imports from Russia rose by 13 percent to USD95 billion. In total, 40 percent of Russia’s imports came from China, and over 75 percent of that was paid in yuan.
Despite the slowdown of global consumption and retail growth, the Russian market has widened quicker than any other e-commerce market in the world, Xu said, adding that Russian consumers are becoming used to online shopping, bringing opportunities to Chinese enterprises.
However, challenges remain as the long period of payments, and fluctuations in the exchange rate of the ruble cause risks. In the past year, Ozon settled payments with Chinese sellers in yuan or US dollars to solve the problem, Huang explained.
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