Yandex.Market online marketplace, a joint venture between internet major Yandex and Russia's largest bank Sberbank, closed a strategic partnership deal with Chinese e-commerce major JD.com.
As of June, Yandex.Market will be selling JD.com goods in Russia through its e-commerce platform, Interfax reported on May 29, citing Yandex.Market’s Head of International Development Alex Vasilyev.
"Yandex.Market, an e-commerce venture between Yandex and Sberbank, is developing three key lines of business – a traditional comparison shopping engine, online marketplace Beru where shoppers can make purchases from multiple categories on one platform and Bringley, a cross-border e-commerce platform," BCS Global Markets said in a research note.
BCS believes the deal with JD.com will strengthen Yandex.Market's cross-border e-commerce exposure.
Currently, cross-border e-commerce is dominated by AliExpress. In China, JD.com is a major competitor to Alibaba's Tmall. AliExpress is is likely to become a joint venture between Alibaba, MegaFon, Mail.ru and Russian Direct Investment Fund in the near future, which will be a major e-commerce conglomeration to compete with Yandex-Sberbank.
China accounts for about 90% of total cross-border shipments to Russia, and about half of Russia's cross-border e-commerce turnover. In 2018, online imports increased by 29 percent year-on-year to 348 billion rubles ($5.4 billion).
In the meantime Russia's largest online retailer Wildberries accused Yandex.Market of redirecting traffic to the marketplace on the Yandex search engine. Wildberries claimed on May 29 that Yandex.Market appeared in second or third place in the search results for "Wildberries online shop" and similar inquiries.
This article first appeared in bne IntelliNews.
