Retail Internet Trade in Russia: Standing, Trends and Further Development

Abstract

The article studies trends in the development of retail internet-trade in Russia based on official statistic data. The research showed that the share of internet-trade in the total retail trade turnover is very low, the target indicators of the Strategy of Trade Development in the Russian Federation up to 2025 were not attained. Only one third of the population use the Internet to buy goods and the average cost of sale per one customer in the network makes up 10 500 rubles a year. Different factors exerted various influence on the dynamics of yearly cost of internetsales per one customer: the growth in the total volume of market (trade turnover) of internet-trade had a positive impact, while a share of the population using the Internet for purchases had an adverse affect. The impact of the corona-virus pandemic, which caused a mass temporary shift to internet buying was not studied in the work. Findings of the analysis gave a chance to ground the conditions of the further development of internet-trade. Among promising conditions the article underlined a growing cover of different regions by the Internet, as this factor is an infrastructural one for building internet-trade. Another promising line in further development of internet-trade is selling goods by mobile applications, as mobile access to the Internet is prevailing for people of the country.

Keywords

• internet-trade
• online-trade
• e-trade
• retail trade
• internet communication
• trade
• commercial activity
• trade economics
• trade management