Ministry of economy of Tatarstan together with online retailers WILDBERRIES and OZON held a business session on cooperation with entrepreneurs of Tatarstan
An interactive meeting of the heads of the largest online hypermarkets WILDBERRIES and OZON with the business community was held at the initiative of the Ministry of economy of the Republic of Tatarstan in the house of entrepreneurs in Kazan. E-commerce operators spoke about the experience of developing online sales channels and opportunities for placing products and goods of local manufacturers on their sites.
"The e-commerce market in Tatarstan follows global trend and keeps growing. We are actively working to make the Republic attractive for investment for Russia's largest online retailers and to provide local producers with the opportunity to reduce distribution costs through access to online sales channels. The digital environment should be comfortable for all its participants and guarantee maximum transparency of all concluded transactions," RT Minister of economy Farid Abdulganiev said.
As the Minister said with reference to the data of a number of information and analytical systems, such as AKIT, Yandex.Market, Rosstat, Tatarstanstat and others, the volume of the e-commerce market in Tatarstan is growing annually. Thus, in 2016 it amounted to 17.5 billion rubles, in 2017 and 2018 – 29 and 45.3 billion rubles, respectively. In the period from 2019 to 2022, growth is projected from 56.3 to 105.1 billion rubles.
At the same time, according to the same systems, it is expected that the share of the Republic in the e-Commerce market will grow faster than other regions of the Russian Federation, which will be facilitated by a favorable investment climate and business conditions, attracting investment in the region, the dynamics of the level of Internet penetration, use of delivery services and the share of online purchases.
Wildberries founder Tatyana Bakalchuk and Ozon group CEO Alexander Shulgin answered the questions of potential partners from Tatarstan about the conditions of registration, placement, delivery and return of goods, nuances of food trade, packaging and branding of shipments to customers in a talk show format. A separate set of issues touched upon the financial costs of local producers to use the logistics infrastructure of online retailers and possible preferences for small and medium-sized businesses of Tatarstan after the completion of the construction of distribution centers in the Republic.
According to Wildberries CEO Tatyana Bakalchuk, the opening of the new distribution center will not only create more than 4 thousand new jobs in the region next year, but also accelerate the delivery of online store orders to customers of the Volga Federal District, as well as strengthen cooperation with small and medium-sized businesses of the Republic. 50 suppliers from Tatarstan are already working with the company, their turnover at Wildberries for 9 months of 2019 compared to the same period last year increased by 208% to 273.4 million rubles.
According to Ozon CEO Alexander Shulgin, the company's sales in the Republic grew by more than 110% compared to last year. In his opinion, the development of logistics infrastructure is a key driver for market growth. The new logistics hub of the company, the start of construction of which is given today, will allow to store and process 7 million goods and deliver them to the residents of the Republic day by day or the next day, even to remote settlements.
Thus, the OZON group of companies plans to implement an investment project for the construction of a logistics center with an area of 40 thousand square meters on an area of 10.5 hectares. The volume of attracted investments will exceed 2 billion rubles. The distribution center of the online trading operator will open in the 3rd quarter of 2020, the project will create more than 1 thousand new jobs. In the same year, another logistics hub with an area of 100 thousand square meters will be opened by Wildberries near Zelenodolsk. The project investments are estimated at 5 billion rubles. The social effect of the project will be expressed in the employment of more than 5 thousand people.
In addition, the participants discussed the potential impact of e-commerce on the economy of Tatarstan and key barriers to the development of e-commerce. The main constraint, according to small and medium-sized businesses, is the lack of knowledge and skills in the field of creating new products, branding and marketing. After the Q&A session, representatives of e-commerce companies held informal consultations.