eBay have added the ability for Russian retailers to sell on eBay Russia. This is the first time in almost 10 years that eBay has established a marketplace in a new country.
Up until now eBay has only enabled Russians to buy on eBay. Now retailers can start to sell in a phased roll out, at launch, a small number of local retailers, including Wikimart.ru and e5.ru, have listed approx. 60,000 items, and these numbers will grow throughout 2015. During this phase, retailers will reach domestic Russian shoppers only; eBay expects to open up their inventory to a global customer base during 2015.
“One of eBay’s core differentiators in Russia is that we make it possible for Russians to shop the world,” said Vladimir Dolgov, head of eBay’s operations in Russia. “Now, by opening our domestic business, we are enabling Russians to shop their own country, and we’re supporting retailers in their goals to expand in ecommerce.”
Since October 2012, eBay has launched a localized mobile presence, a Russian web site, more tailored marketing initiatives and promotions including a Russian TV advert, and a series of improvements in shipping, payments (PayPal started operating in Rubles in 2013) and other areas to accelerate its plans for the country.
You might say “So what, who cares?”, but the reality is that if Russians become accustomed to buying on eBay.ru then it’ll also encourage them to start shopping from global eBay listings. If you want to appeal to the Russian audience, the biggest national audience in Europe in terms of users, all you need do is make sure that you add shipping to Russia to your listings.
6 Responses
From our experience the Russian Post Office needs a shake up first, as approx. 25% of the items we send to Russian Federation “Go Missing” and subsequently they end up making a claim.
Compare this to an average claim of under 3% for the rest of the world (Excluding Italy)
I am looking forward to the possibility of being able to list our product on eBay Russia. In my experience Russian customers are always friendly and know they sometimes have to be patient to receive their deliveries because of customs. The comment above doesn’t reflect my experience, we rarely have items go missing.
Russian post office tracking is wonderful it tells you exactly where your package was delayed for 3 months LOL