Monday, 3 March 2014

Amazon Has 'No Chance' In Russia, Warns Rival Boss

The chairman and major shareholder of Russian ecommerce firm Ulmart says Amazon can't compete with its model which can get packages to customers in 'minutes'.

Ulmart's Dimitry Kostygin said: 'Most of our products are available to customers within 10 minutes or next morning.'

He said: 'We are not Amazon. Our product is better,' he said in an interview with Bloomberg Television's Market Makers.

Ulmart.ru operates a model warehouses in built up areas which allow the country's shoppers, most of whom prefer to deal in cash, to pick up goods by hand.

'That was our invention. We switched from [other models] of ex-urban fulfillment centres to urban and suburban carry out areas. So its kind of like pizza so they can get out [to customers] but they also need a carry out area,' said Kostygin.

'We believe they [Amazon] will switch in this direction in a couple of years,' he said. He told Bloomberg's Business Week: 'In this market, Amazon has no chance.' 

Kostygin said finding good real estate was the principle obstacle to growth but it was focusing on the most developed, highly populated, westerly regions.

'We don't to go the furthest locations - we only focus on the European part of Russia which is 95 per cent of the consumption,' he said.

He added that he was optimistic about the Russian economy: 'Who is complaining about [the Russian economy] slowing. In the last 20 years I have seen the Russian economy grow to the fifth or six biggest in the world.'

Russia's online shopping sector increased 26 per cent last year to 510 billion rubles (£8.3 billion) and Moscow's Data insight says that could double by 2015.

Ulmart has a turnover of around $1.2 billion (£720 million) and rivals in the country include Amazon imitator Ozon which increased net sales 55 per cent in 2012 to $250 million, the most recent figures available.

Ulmart has a fleet of 190 trucks that ship directly to homes. It also moves large volumes of products directly to outlying hubs to ensure a more efficient delivery schedule. Its model also allow it to bypass Russia's extremely slow postal system for many packages. It focuses on electronic goods and household products from motor oil to nappies.

It has 30 urban warehouses at 200 to 300 square feet and 250 outposts of as little as 100 square feet. It has three national hubs each at 120,000 square feet and plans to add another two this year that will be twice as large.

Even those would be a fraction of the size of many of Amazon's 100 worldwide hubs which can be up to 1 million square feet.

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