Odnoklassniki Russia’s second largest social network, has shut down its online marketplace “Magaziny” (‘Shops’ in Russian), reports the Russian tech blog Roem.ru. The marketplace had been launched just half a year ago.
The service enabled big and small merchants to promote and sell their products easily in a dedicated section of the social network. Purchases could be settled either online using [email protected] – the e-currency of the Mail.ru Group, which owns Odnoklassniki – or upon delivery.
Odnoklassniki’s press service told Roem.ru that this marketplace did not witness sufficient demand from the social network’s users.
In October 2013, Odnoklassniki.ru reached 41.9 million Russian users from 12 to 64 years of age, according to TNS.
A similar service had been launched previously as an experiment by Vkontakte.ru (VK.com), Russia’s first social network. Launched in 2010, the project was shut down in 2011.
As shown in a recent study by East-West Digital News on Russian e-commerce, brands already widely use social networks for promotional purposes, but social commerce as such is still experimental in Russia.
The failed marketplace concepts of Odnoklassniki and Vkontakte, however, are just one of many existing forms of social commerce. A total of more than 200,000 entrepreneurs currently use Odnoklassniki as one of their distribution channels, the social network’s press service told East-West Digital News.
Vkontakte has also hundreds of thousands of communities with more or less affirmed trading functions in Russia as well as such Russian-speaking countries as Ukraine and Kazakhstan
Among established companies that have lauched successful branded applications on this network are Alfa Bank and Tinkoff Bank (4 million and 2.5 million users, respectively, as of July 2013), as well as the flash sales site KupiVIP (3.5 million users).
Earlier this year, online flower shop Obradoval.ru launched a pioneering social commerce project, enabling its clients to view the ordered flower bunches on the site’s Instagram page. The site feels that the new feature has increased customer loyalty and attracted new clients, reported Oborot.ru, a leading online publication covering the Russian e-commerce scene. The impact has not been massive, however, perhaps due to the fact that Instagram is far from having reached a critical mass of users in Russia.
- RUSSIAN E-COMMERCE REPORT – The total volume of Russian online retail is expected to reach $16 billion this year, up from $13 billion in 2012, not including cross border sales. In partnership leading universities and consultancies, EWDN has published an in-depth research on this industry. To receive free insights or to order the full version (2013 edition), please contact us at [email protected].
