Russia's online exports of goods could reach $10bn in 3-7 years, according to the estimates of eBay Russia and Emerging Europe cited by Prime on March 28.

The market was valued at $430mn in 2016 with only 0.3% of Russian SMEs exporting their goods online, Ilya Kretov of eBay estimated. The figure in Western Europe is at 7%-8%, and Russia has enormous 25-fold upside potential, he argues. In 2018 the online exports of Russian goods increased by 36% to $746mn.

Russian e-commerce market could reach RUB2.78 trillion ($43bn) by 2024 according to the study by the Gaidar Institute published this month. This would bring online sales to 8.5% of all Russian retail market, up from 3.5% in 2017 and 4.1% in 2018.

In absolute terms this would almost double the e-commerce market estimated in 2018 at RUB1.5 trillion ($22.8bn). Gaidar's forecast is a conservative one at that, with Morgan Stanley expecting RUB3.5 trillion market by 2024, RBC reminds.

Gaidar's study notes of rising rates of internet penetration in Russia to about 70%, but notes that in the past three years the share of those involved in e-commerce plateaued at 35-43% of the population or 41mn-51mn people.

The further growth of the e-commerce market is seen mostly fuelled by the growth of an average receipt and purchase frequency. Currently average Russian internet shopper is most likely to buy food online (8.4 times a year on average), followed by children’s goods (4.6 times), and household appliances (1.5 times) and mobile devices/accessories (1.4 times).

Last month the East-West Digital News (EWDN) has published 10 key takeaways regarding the current state of Internet usage in Russia, according to which internet penetration stands at 76%. There are currently 109.6mn Internet users in Russia. The vast majority of them (75%) live in urban areas, where there are more opportunities to engage in e-commerce.

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