Who are the Russian online shoppers?
When looking at the users' demographics, every second e-shopper in the country was between 25 and 45 years old as of 2020, most likely earning above-average income and more often than not shopping fashion items online. That is, apparel along with consumer electronics were the segments that accounted for the largest share of online versus offline shoppers. Such tendency can be explained by the customers' predilection to research and compare products before purchase thus e-stores provide a very convenient format for such a shopping experience.Even though Russians enjoy the traditional shopping experience, COVID-19 left its mark on customer preferences in this sense as well, with nearly one-third of the shoppers reporting not feeling safe in the retail stores according to the April 2021 survey. Customers also revealed high intentionality to keep buying from the online stores they have discovered during the lockdown period.
Logistics and shopping devices
With the steadily expanding e-commerce market, online orders volume rose accordingly over the past few years. In 2021, the largest share of orders was delivered to pick-up points and parcel automats of major marketplaces or logistic companies. Nearly every online shop was providing such a service. Interestingly, the capital was not the leading city in the country by the number of online orders per capita – ranking in fifth place as of the first half of 2020. Interestingly, the capital was not the leading city in the country by the number of online orders per capita – ranking in fifth place as of the first half of 2020.Even though desktop and laptop computers accounted for about 65 percent of internet traffic countrywide, smartphone ownership outstripped that of laptop or desktop computers in Russia as of January 2021. Smartphones also ranked as the most-employed devices for online shopping in that year. Generation Z and Millenials were the most frequent users of mobile devices for online shopping purposes compared to the older generations in the country.
