According to findings in the new report “Russia B2C E-Commerce Market 2022” from yStats.com, Russia is among the worldwide leaders in terms of retail M-Commerce growth. The secondary market research firm from Hamburg, Germany, cites market statistics that B2C E-Commerce sales in Russia saw a strong continuous growth since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Driven by the development of mobile and cross-border E-Commerce, online retail sales in Russia have been setting new records.
While Russia’s B2C E-Commerce market is growing, it’s retail E-Commerce market is projected to decrease
Russia ranks second worldwide among the fastest growing B2C E-Commerce markets in Europe by 2021 results. According to market data cited in this report by yStats.com, the domestic cross-border E-Commerce sales in Russia made up close to 90% of total B2C E-Commerce sales, compared to approximately 70% in 2019. The biggest contributor to this growth was the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic for the years following 2019. Compared to the B2C E-Commerce sales the overall retail E-Commerce sales value in Russia is expected to decrease by 2024.
Even with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, more Russian consumers shopped exclusively in physical stores
The largest proportion of Russia’s online shoppers are young to middle aged, with 25-44 year-olds accounting for more than one-half of digital buyers in 2021, according to statistics included in yStats.com’s report. Interestingly, “Travel, Mobility and Accommodation” had by far the highest consumer E-Commerce spending in 2021, even with regard towards the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Also, compared to 2020, more and more Russian consumers opted to shop exclusively in physical stores during the year 2021.
One of Russia’s major trends emerged in form of the subscribtion service market
Compared to the CIS, Russia ranks fourth in the share of smartphone penetration making up the total connections in the country. Russia’s share was above the share of the entire CIS region in 2020, but this lead is forecasted to decline by the year 2025, as stated in the yStats.com’s report. Also, Russia’s subscription market is expected to reach almost half a billion in 2024, which is not surprising considering the fact that almost two thirds of Russians preferr russian subscription services over international ones. But the annual growth rate of russias subscribtion market is forecasted to significantly decline by over 60% until 2024.
