Alibaba has opened a Russian subsidiary, Alibaba.com(ru), to expand it’s reach in the country according to Russian site Kommersant.
Alibaba is already the biggest marketplace represented in Russia with the average monthly number of Russian buyers shopping at AliExpress in the second half of 2014 was 15.6m, while 3.7m used eBay and 1.4m on Amazon.
Chinese retailers are already growing their businesses in Russia with about 70% of overseas shipments into Russia coming from China.
Mark Zavadsky adds Director General to his title whilst continuing his responsibilities as Business Development Director for AliExpress in Russia and the CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States, formerly the Soviet Union). Mark says “Alibaba Group founded a new company in Russia in order to further expand our business and support our partners, and also to facilitate cooperation with the State Authorities of Russia”.
Up until now most of Alibaba’s sales in Russia have come from AliExpress, and it’s logical to presume that part of the growth plans will be to increase sales from Alibaba.com. Whilst AliExpress is the B2C arm of the business, Alibaba.com would want to sell B2B wholesale deals to Russian retailers and wholesalers.
Many thanks to Al Gerrie of ZigZag Global for the heads up on this news
