Ozon Wants Giant Slice Of Russian eCommerce Pie

Russian online retailer, Ozon Holding Plc, wants to have at least one-third of the country’s eCommerce market by 2026 through a tenfold increase in sales in the next five years, according to a Bloomberg report Tuesday (Aug. 17).

CEO Alexander Shulgin told Bloomberg in an interview the company is aiming for a gross merchandise volume of 2.5 trillion rubles, or $34 billion, in 2026. Today, Ozon has about 10 percent of the country’s retail market in its pocket, trailing Wildberries for the top spot, and has 50,000 active sellers.

It “won’t be winner-take-all in Russia,” Shulgin told Bloomberg. “It’s not like we are taking customers from one another. Our efforts bring more customers online.”

Ozon Express features about 20,000 items — ranging from groceries to technology products — delivered within 90 minutes of customers’ ordering. That business segment grew 500 percent in the second quarter of fiscal 2021 and could soon add a 15-minute delivery option.

Ozon bought a bank license in the second quarter of 2021 to develop an advertising and financial technology arm. The company has issued more than 1 million cards, including 200,000 in the second quarter, making them the third most popular payment method in Russia.

“We understand how to be profitable by 2024, but it depends on how much growth we want to have, and what’s best for shareholders,” Shulgin said. “We are still very far from the scale needed to be a huge Russian eCommerce leader.”

See also: Russian eCommerce Giant Ozon Looks Toward FinTech Offerings

Ozon plans to introduce deposits as it expands its financial services.

In November 2020, Ozon saw its shares escalate 40 percent in the opening of its U.S. initial public offering (IPO), which notched $1 billion. Ozon is the first Russian company to hold an initial public offering (IPO) in the nation in almost five years.