International shipments to Russia boomed last year with Russian Post seeing a 50% increase inimport volumes as consumers ordered more goods from foreign websites, including from China, the USA
and Italy, and a new sales portal for Italian products is now being set up in response.Russian consumers spent around RUB 80 billion (€2 billion) on purchases from foreign internetshops in 2012 with the average amount of an individual order worth RUB 2,700 (€67), according tothe postal operator.
This spending spree generated a 50% surge in incoming express mail, parcels and small packagesto a total of some 30 million shipments. This represented about 20% of Russian Post’s overallshipment volumes last year.
Imports from China soared, and the country’s share of overall international shipping volumes toRussia more than doubled from 8% to 17% last year. According to preliminary calculations, Russiansreceived around 1.5 million registered small parcels from China with the strongest growth recordedduring the last two months of 2012 driven by the pre-New Year holiday period.
According to Chinese data, postal shipments to Russia increased by 47% to 2,270 tonnes lastNovember and by 78% to 2,754 tonnes last December. Parcel volumes nearly doubled to 380 tonnes inNovember and soared by 279% to 477 tonnes in December 2012.
Incoming shipments from the USA also increased by a solid 26% with around 660 tonnes of postalshipments delivered during the November-December peak period last year compared to 570 tonnesregistered during the same period of 2011. Royal Mail also registered an increase in outboundshipments to Russia.
Italy was also a very strong growth market last year with a 50% rise in inbound shippingvolumes, according to data from Italian postal operator Poste Italiane.
In response to this surge in international e-commerce and stronger Italian interest in exportingto Russia, Russian Post and Poste Italiane are currently in negotiations about creating a newinternet portal to make Italian quality products more accessible to Russian consumers at affordableprices.
As part of the joint project, the online portal will feature products of small and medium-sizedItalian manufacturers which can be ordered and purchased with delivery. Poste Italiane is activelydeveloping distance trade with many countries and has around 260 suppliers working at its ITplatforms.
Marina Goncharova, Mail Service Director at Russian Post, said the project is of great interestto the Russian postal operator. “It will enable the post not only to expand its customer base andstrengthen its cooperation with one of the largest European postal operators but will also give anadditional boost to developing Russian-Italian distance trade, which is showing annual growth.”
According to Italian postal workers, 50% of the products of one of the biggest Italian brandsYoox are shipped to Russia. Russians also account for 8% of the VIP clients of Italian internetshops.
Besides the opportunity to order affordable quality products from Italy, Russians will be ableto profit from other advantages when using the portal including the option to pay the goods onreceipt at a post office (cash-on-delivery). The two companies will also work on reducing theprocessing times of shipments to 10 days and the return procedure.
“We will try to share with our Russian colleagues our extensive experience in e-commerce andhybrid mail, complete solutions that meet customer needs. We also want to launch new servicesparticipating in the improvement of the delivery system and IT solutions,” Alberto Buttaroni,Director of Quality Management at Poste Italiane, said.
By mid-April, Italian and Russian specialists are due to develop a detailed business plan forthe project after studying the Russian distance trade market and creating a profile of a typicalRussian consumer. The two postal operators aim to launch the project this summer once the planninghas been completed.
