Support The Moscow Times!

Russia’s Yandex.Market Teams Up With China’s JD.com

The e-commerce deal will strengthen Yandex.Market’s cross-border exposure.

Yandex.Market will sell JD.com goods in Russia. Alexander Avilov / Moskva News Agency

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.

… we have a small favor to ask.

As you may have heard, The Moscow Times, an independent news source for over 30 years, has been unjustly branded as a "foreign agent" by the Russian government. This blatant attempt to silence our voice is a direct assault on the integrity of journalism and the values we hold dear.

We, the journalists of The Moscow Times, refuse to be silenced. Our commitment to providing accurate and unbiased reporting on Russia remains unshaken. But we need your help to continue our critical mission.

Your support, no matter how small, makes a world of difference. If you can, please support us monthly starting from just 2. It's quick to set up, and you can be confident that you're making a significant impact every month by supporting open, independent journalism. Thank you.

Continue

Read more