Russia's E-commerce Market Shifts? AliExpress and Local Platform Wildberries Join Forces

【Ebrun Original】A public notice titled 'Announcement on Adding the Global AliExpress Russia-Oriented Product Service Experience Management Rules' published by AliExpress on October 26 has once again drawn the attention of some cross-border merchants to the Russian market. Meanwhile, earlier industry rumors that AliExpress had reached a strategic cooperation agreement with Russian local e-commerce platform Wildberries have been further confirmed.

After searching for 'aliexpress' on the Wildberries platform, Ebrun found a store named 'Находки из Китая' (meaning 'Discoveries from China'), and the products displayed on the search results page all bear the AliExpress mark, covering multiple categories such as footwear, apparel and accessories, consumer electronics, and accessories and tools.

Based on multiple sources of information, AliExpress and Wildberries have already taken cooperative actions in areas such as payment, pickup networks, and purchasing channels.

As early as February this year, the official account of the Wildberries e-commerce platform posted information stating that 'Wildberries is testing the function of using the WB wallet for payment on AliExpress in CIS countries.' The payment interoperability pilot was seen as a signal of the start of cooperation between the two sides, and Wildberries' statement in the official information that it was 'preparing for larger-scale cooperation in the future and opening the function to all users' also sparked industry speculation about the mode of cooperation between the two platforms.

In April, a seller revealed that they had seen an 'AliExpress' advertisement in the large banner on the Wildberries homepage, and clicking the button on the advertisement image would redirect to a page aggregating various products. 'It seems to be a store-within-a-store model, similar to AliExpress opening a product collection store, or a dedicated page, on Wildberries,' the seller explained.

By June, Russian media reported that the two were testing allowing Wildberries users to purchase Chinese products supplied by AliExpress, and AliExpress users could also pick up goods at Wildberries pickup points. At that time, some domestic sellers also reported on social media platforms that their AliExpress stores had appeared on the Wildberries platform with higher pricing than on AliExpress, and that multiple Russian orders on the AliExpress platform had delivery addresses at Wildberries pickup points.

In September, among AliExpress's platform rule adjustments for sellers, there was one 'Explanation on Signing for the Upgrade of AliExpress Russia Business,' the core of which was changes in the service entity and payment collection method: the relevant service provider was updated from AliExpress CIS Holding Pte. Ltd (a joint venture registered in Singapore, jointly established by Alibaba and several leading Russian companies in 2019) to RWB Global Trading Holding Limited, namely the parent company of Wildberries; at the same time, the merchant payment collection channels were optimized. This seems to mark a new stage in which AliExpress's Russia region has begun deep binding with Wildberries.

It can be seen that although neither side has officially announced the strategic cooperation, specific cooperation matters are gradually being reflected in more aspects.

It is reported that AliExpress was a pioneer in cross-border e-commerce to Russia, having entered the Russian market as early as 2012 and once developed into a market leader with about 40% of local e-commerce orders, but after 2022 the platform reduced its business investment in the Russia region. At the same time, Russia's two major local e-commerce platforms, Wildberries and Ozon, expanded rapidly. Industry data shows that Wildberries currently has a market share of about 47% in Russia and has laid out more than 96,000 parcel pickup points in total. Now, with AliExpress and Wildberries joining forces, the competitive landscape of Russian e-commerce may be reshaped.

This article was first published on the official website of Ebrun.