Today the major Western players in internet banking and e-commerce understand that they shouldn’t ignore the Russian consumer either — because business development in RuNet is very important for increasing global e-commerce.
The Russian segment of the internet is an attractive growth opportunity for many online retailers. However, successful market entry requires accounting for regional specifics and potential problems.
Of course, you need to understand the typical RuNet user. It turns out only 5% of Russian and Ukrainian internet users buy goods and services online or use online banking. In Estonia and Poland, for example, that figure is around 50%. Research shows just 8% of respondents buy something online monthly. In Poland and Austria it’s 30%. So very few Russian users actually make purchases online.
However, despite slow e-commerce development, more than half of RuNet users use mail services, read news online, 22% regularly download music, video, images, 12% play online games and exchange files. Payment by credit card is uncommon — payment via SMS is much more widespread.
Credit cards are so uncommon due to insufficient security of their use. Stores like eBay struggle to grow due to market immaturity, corruption, and customs rules. But if these barriers are overcome, truly broad opportunities open up.
It would seem that the development of internet banking and online commerce should interest the Russian financial elite — but it doesn’t happen, due to the absence of strong players and slow RuNet development. Though things are slowly moving forward. The DigitalSkyTechnologies fund controls a significant portion of RuNet traffic through social services VKontakte, Odnoklassniki, and Mail.ru. The fund was also the first in RuNet to acquire 2% of Facebook shares. We should expect further development in this direction.
RuNet still lags in development due to low integration with the global internet community. E-commerce in the West is highly developed, but RuNet can’t yet boast of that. Without e-commerce functionality, RuNet isolates itself from buyers. But the pioneers in online commerce will certainly come out winners and gain significant benefit.
