With a population of 144 million people and a steadily increasing internet penetration rate, Russia ranks in the top 6 countries with the highest number of internet users. The Russian B2C e-commerce market has been growing by around 20% annually, with cross-border sales increasing at a double speed that domestic ones. Despite that, Italian firms have just started tapping into it, held-back by country-specific peculiarities that are mainly unknown and perceived as barriers. These unique features range from cultural elements and payment preferences to logistics issues and legal aspects, and more. Also, the academic community so far has shown little interest in the topic, as proved by the low amount of publications specifically analysing B2C e-commerce in Russia, most of them realised in the early ‘2000s. These studies are mainly descriptive and, although they manage to provide a good picture of the local business environment, are to be considered out-of-date. In addition, no paper addresses the analysis from the perspective of foreign companies willing to implement cross-border e-commerce. In the light of these considerations, this work sets itself the primary objective of providing informative support to Italian firms interested in exporting to Russia through the internet-based sales channels. At this purpose, it presents an analysis of the market grounded both on primary sources – cases studies based on semi-structured interviews with 4 Italian companies and direct investigation of 117 Russian e-commerce sites – as well as secondary sources. The research explains the strategic decisions adopted by the interviewed companies to serve the Russian online consumers, underlines the peculiarities of the local market and suggests some tactics deemed successful to deal with them. Moreover, with the aim of quantifying the analysis and disclosing more detailed insights, an empirical study of the leading 117 Russian online retailers is performed. It allows to gain an understanding of how the Russian B2C e-commerce market offer is structured both in terms of players and services offered to customers. The research from this master thesis supports indeed foreign managers in the selection of the trade channels through which entering the Russian online marketplace and, by diminishing the information gap in Russian B2C e-commerce, lays the foundation for future developments in the literature stream investigating this issue.
Con una popolazione di 144 milioni di persone e un tasso di penetrazione di internet del 76%, la Russia rientra tra i primi 6 paesi al mondo per numero di utenti web. Il mercato e-commerce business-to-consumer russo ha raddoppiato il suo valore negli ultimi quattro anni, e le vendite transnazionali crescono al doppio della velocità di quelle nazionali. Nonostante questi trend promettenti, sono ancora poche le aziende italiane ad aver sfruttato le potenzialità di questo mercato, frenate dalla scarsa conoscenza delle sue peculiarità che sono spesso percepite come barriere. Queste spaziano dalla geografia del territorio alla cultura, dal sistema politico e legislativo alle infrastrutture con conseguenti implicazioni sulle strategie commerciali, logistiche e marketing adottabili dalle imprese per servire i consumatori locali. La comunità accademica non è stata finora di grande supporto al mondo del business, poiché poche sono state le ricerche sviluppate sul tema. Per di più, la maggior parte di questi studi, prevalentemente descrittivi, risale al primo decennio degli anni 2000, e di conseguenza le analisi da essi prodotte, benché accurate, sono parzialmente obsolete. Alla luce di queste considerazioni, questa tesi si pone come obbiettivo primario quello di fornire un supporto alle aziende italiane interessate ad esportare in Russia attraverso il canale digitale. A questo scopo, è stata effettuata un’analisi di mercato basata sia su fonti primarie – interviste con quattro compagnie italiane e investigazione diretta dei siti internet di 117 retailer russi – che su fonti secondarie. La ricerca ha evidenziato i tratti distintivi del mercato locale e le strategie adottate dalle aziende intervistate per penetrarvi, suggerendo alcune linee guida ritenute efficaci per espandere l’attività in Russia. Inoltre, al fine di approfondire ulteriormente l’analisi, è stato condotto uno studio quantitativo dei primi 117 siti e-commerce russi che ha coinvolto le loro caratteristiche e i servizi da essi offerti al consumatore. Le analisi sviluppate in questa tesi possono quindi guidare le aziende italiane nella scelta dei canali commerciali con cui affacciarsi al mercato digitale russo. Inoltre, riunendo ed organizzando in modo strutturato informazioni attuali su questo mercato, gettano le basi per sviluppi futuri nella letteratura sull’internazionalizzazione verso questo Paese.
Cross-border e-commerce to Russia : an analysis of the market and the trade channels available to exporters in the consumer goods sector
TENUTA, TATIANA
2017/2018
Abstract
With a population of 144 million people and a steadily increasing internet penetration rate, Russia ranks in the top 6 countries with the highest number of internet users. The Russian B2C e-commerce market has been growing by around 20% annually, with cross-border sales increasing at a double speed that domestic ones. Despite that, Italian firms have just started tapping into it, held-back by country-specific peculiarities that are mainly unknown and perceived as barriers. These unique features range from cultural elements and payment preferences to logistics issues and legal aspects, and more. Also, the academic community so far has shown little interest in the topic, as proved by the low amount of publications specifically analysing B2C e-commerce in Russia, most of them realised in the early ‘2000s. These studies are mainly descriptive and, although they manage to provide a good picture of the local business environment, are to be considered out-of-date. In addition, no paper addresses the analysis from the perspective of foreign companies willing to implement cross-border e-commerce. In the light of these considerations, this work sets itself the primary objective of providing informative support to Italian firms interested in exporting to Russia through the internet-based sales channels. At this purpose, it presents an analysis of the market grounded both on primary sources – cases studies based on semi-structured interviews with 4 Italian companies and direct investigation of 117 Russian e-commerce sites – as well as secondary sources. The research explains the strategic decisions adopted by the interviewed companies to serve the Russian online consumers, underlines the peculiarities of the local market and suggests some tactics deemed successful to deal with them. Moreover, with the aim of quantifying the analysis and disclosing more detailed insights, an empirical study of the leading 117 Russian online retailers is performed. It allows to gain an understanding of how the Russian B2C e-commerce market offer is structured both in terms of players and services offered to customers. The research from this master thesis supports indeed foreign managers in the selection of the trade channels through which entering the Russian online marketplace and, by diminishing the information gap in Russian B2C e-commerce, lays the foundation for future developments in the literature stream investigating this issue.| File | Dimensione | Formato | |
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https://hdl.handle.net/10589/142464