Companies are increasing their investments in social technologies but

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According to Boris Lepitskikh, director of the Yekaterinburg online store e96.ru, 2013 will be a turning point in the minds of large federal players, who will begin to actively develop the regional direction. “We already have six full-fledged branches and plan to open another 10 in 2013,” he says. “In 2012, we made half of our turnover not in Yekaterinburg, but in other cities.”

Thanks to serious investments in logistics projects, major market players have managed to build an infrastructure and delivery system. Thus, recently one of the major Swiss funds announced its intention to invest $100 million in the development of logistics, and another player plans to invest $30 million in the construction of a distribution center. Such large projects can become an additional driver of market growth in the regions. "There are two drivers - expansion of the product range and logistics network," agrees Vsevolod Strakh, founder and CEO of Sotmarket. - In May, we had 45 of our own pick-up points in cities with a population of over a million, and now there are more than 300 points. Next year, we plan to build hubs and transfer up to 500 pick-up points to cities with a population of less than 50 thousand residents. Also in September, we launched a CRM system, which allowed us to automate purchases and update the range of up to 1 thousand SKUs daily. In September last year, our portfolio included 7 thousand items, and now there are 90 thousand nurses email database items. Thus, the number of visitors increased from 220 to 800 thousand, and the number of orders reached 700 thousand per day. Before we connected powerful affiliate marketing, our conversion rate was about 2%."

The conversion from regular customers is several times higher than from the entire marketing budget, believes the CEO of VseInstrumenty.ru Viktor Kuznetsov. Nevertheless, in order to take a leading position in the market, serious investments in marketing are necessary, they noted at the forum. According to the CEO of Enter Svyaznoy Sergey Rumyantsev, the leading player will need about $150-200 million.

According to Sergei Rumyantsev, online trade could reach a share of 5-7% in Russian retail turnover. But the industry will not develop until clear standards appear. "As long as cash payments are widespread, as long as there are hundreds of legal entities selling low-quality goods, as long as online stores dump below the manufacturer's cost price, investors will not invest in the industry," he believes. "And that means infrastructure and logistics will not develop."

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