The volume of e-commerce market in Russia will grow by the end of 2016 by 28% to $15.7 bln, General Director of Citilink Mikhail Slavinsky told TASS on Wednesday.
“In 2015, we estimate the market at about $12.24 bln, and the first half of 2016, according to experts, totals $6.3 bln,” Slavinsky said. “Thus, this year’s e-commerce market volume in Russia might approach $15.7 bln, which means that the industry is healthy,” he added, adding that this includes “national figures”, data on foreign online stores sales, whose share in the Russian market is close to 30%.
According Slavinsky, in 2016 “consumption is restoring despite the fact that the entire Russian market at best is not growing – customers change purchasing model and in some cases choose in favor of online shopping.”
Citilink is an electronic discount store that currently owns 29 full-terminal stores in 23 Russian cities, including Moscow, St. Petersburg, Nizhny Novgorod, Ekaterinburg, Kazan.
Putin says Russian and foreign companies should be in equal conditions
Vladimir Putin said that domestic and foreign participants of the e-commerce market in Russia should work under the same conditions.
“Russian and foreign participants of electronic commerce often find themselves in unequal conditions, we proceed from the assumption that all market participants should be put on an equal footing – this applies to Russian and to our foreign partners,” the head of state said at a meeting on the development of e-commerce.
“The foreign colleagues should be confident that they will always be in conditions which are not worse than those for Russian participants, and of course Russian players should not be in a worse situation than foreign ones,” Putin said.
The head of state said that e-commerce is one of the most rapidly growing segment of modern economy and it defines the development of effective and profitable business in many ways, opens new possibilities of buying necessary goods and services.
“In our country the e-commerce is also growing intensively,” the President said. He said that according to experts’ data, in 2015 the e-commerce market in the country totaled 760 bln rubles ($11.9 bln) and according to forecast this year it will be about 850 bln rubles ($13.3 bln).
“At the same time the rapid growth of the e-commerce market has its problems,” Putin said.
According to the president, “statutory regulation is not always able to keep the pace of the sector’s development”. “As a results Russian and foreign participants of ecommerce often find themselves in unequal conditions,” Putin said.