Pochta Rossii will create an online store following the example of Amazon and eBay

Photo: Russian Post

Now "Mail of Russia" is actively looking for an opportunity to get additional profit. Now the service decided to create an online store, taking as a model the business model of Amazon, eBay and Wikimart. At the same time, Russian Post plans to provide a platform for goods from various sellers (as in the case of eBay and AliExpress), and to enable buyers to order goods at various post offices using printed catalogs, Siliconrus reports . Perhaps the most popular and sought-after products will be sold in the branches.

Earn "Mail of Russia" will be at the expense of a commission of 20%. It will be taken from sellers who work in the system. Also, sellers will prepare printed catalogs and process customer orders. Sources familiar with the project claim that Pochta Rossii also requires vendors to guarantee the availability of inventory and the obligation to incur marketing costs.

The first pilot project of the Russian Post online store, launched in partnership with Biglion, provided for a commission of 19%. Thus, the commission, which plans to take the "Mail of Russia", several times higher than the commission AliExpress (5%), Wikimart (2.2-15%), eBay (10%). An even larger commission will be only at the retailer "Yulmart", which also plans to launch a trading platform. The retailer plans to charge a 25% commission from its partners.
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The initial plan of the Post of Russia provides for the possibility of attracting one or two partners for each of the product categories. In the future, the partnership will be expanded. The idea may be attractive to partners due to the possibility of working with offline buyers. Nevertheless, the need to keep goods in stock, spend money on marketing and high commission has already scared off a few potential partners.

According to the Minister of Communications, Mikhail Evrayev, a state-owned company must earn several billion rubles a year to compensate for the costs of maintaining its branches. In the first years after the launch of the online store, this will not be possible.

At the end of last year, Russian Post launched its pilot project in partnership with Biglion. Then about 200 thousand orders were issued with an average price of 600 rubles. It is interesting that 95% of all orders were brought by printed catalogs, that is, the most clients came from offline. The second pilot project was launched in June 2015 together with Cosmart. In June-July, the daily turnover of this site ranged from 600 to 950 thousand rubles, with an average check of 870 rubles.

“We have no desire to go into the trade, to become eBay or Alibaba. But we understand that the network of post offices and logistics with a coverage scale of “all Russia” are attractive for already established online stores. I believe that we will be able to become a pivotal logistics partner for the development of the domestic e-commerce market, ”commented Dmitry Strashnov, General Director of the Russian Post.