Russian eCommerce May Have Hit A Wall

Online commerce culture has matured in just about every developed country to the point that consumers aren’t quite as dazzled by the experience as they may have been years ago. This can be a blessing for merchants who find ways to integrate the shopping experience into consumers’ everyday lives – but it can be a curse for those who don’t.

According to a recent report from the Ecommerce Foundation, that may be what Russian consumers are feeling, as the growth of eCommerce in that country appears to be slowing at a prodigious rate. Though the market claimed a 31-percent growth rate in 2014, that subsequently dipped to just 6.6 percent in 2015 and is projected to top out at 5.3 percent in 2016.

The Ecommerce Foundation placed the lion’s share of the blame for Russia’s slowdown on its flagging economy. Drops in the ruble have curbed spending, and from 2014 to 2015 alone, the average annual consumer spending online dropped from 741 euros to 685. According to the report’s authors, this has also had a marked affect on where Russian shoppers choose to spend their hard-earned rubles.

“Many products are cheaper when bought abroad than on the domestic market. Most Western European countries lost their competitiveness as the ruble lost half of its value in 2014-2015,” the report concludes. “Another reason to buy abroad is that many products are simply not available, or at least hard to find, on the domestic market. The delivery of products from China is relatively fast: in a couple of weeks on average versus up to several months in the past. The trust of Russian consumers in Chinese eCommerce sites is also growing.”