Even though the largest Russian online retailer Wildberries has rolled out its online store in Ukraine on Sept. 21, it expectedly already stirred tensions online.
Currently, the company sells about three million items that are made by 32,000 brands. Ukrainians can order goods both on the website and the iOS app. Soon the company will release its app for Android. Russian Wildberries will compete with Ukrainian online retailers such as Rozetka and Olx Group on the Ukrainian market.
“The opening of an online store in Ukraine was the next step in the implementation of our international strategy,” Vyacheslav Ivaschenko, the development director of Wildberries said, according to the company’s press release. “We see high potential for development in the country: Its residents are increasingly making purchases in online stores, and the growth rate of e-commerce continues to grow.”
Postal service companies Meest and Nova Poshta will deliver the goods, and the delivery time will be 10-12 days.
After the launch, social media users noticed that the Ukrainian version of the store sells goods with Russian and Soviet symbols that are prohibited in Ukraine and depictions of Russian President Vladimir Putin. As of now, Wildberries had already deleted most of these items.
“I wonder if they deliver Buks (Russian missile system) or Novichok agent (a poison developed in the USSR)? The supply of symbols is no less important than the supply of ammunition. Russia understands this,” Oleksiy Honcharenko, a lawmaker from the European Solidarity party, wrote on his Telegram channel.
“Since when has this become legal? And who has such effrontery as to open such a business?” Olena Herasymyuk added on Facebook.
Wildberries is registered in Russia. Its headquarters is located in Moscow. However, Ukrainian customers will be served by WILDBERRIES Sp.z.o.o., which has headquarters in Warsaw, the press-service of the company told Novoye Vremya.
The company’s owner is Russian entrepreneur Tatyana Bakalchuk. In 2004, Bakalchuk and her husband Vladislav founded Wildberries.
Now Bakalchuk is the richest woman in Russia and the 93d richest person in the country, according to Forbes Russia. As of Feb. 20, 2020, Bakalchuk’s fortune is $1.4 billion. She overtook Yelena Baturina, the former owner of the Inteko company and the widow of Moscow’s former mayor, Yuri Luzhkov.
Wildberries is the largest online retailer in Russia. In the second quarter of 2020, Wildberries’ turnover grew 2.2 times compared to the second quarter of 2019, reaching 103.4 billion rubles ($1.36 billion).
Apart from Ukraine, Wildberries operates in seven countries: Russia, Poland, Slovakia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan.
In 2013, another Russian online retailer, Lamoda, launched its store in Ukraine. The company is developing actively and, in 2019, it rolled out its own loyalty program in the country.
