Page 16 - bne_Magazine_April_2018

16 I Companies & Markets bne April 2018
Edadeal and Russia’s cashback retail revolution
Ben Aris in Berlin
Natalia Shagarina doesn't look like an e-commerce entrepreneur in charge of a service that is taking the Russian online retail business by storm, and is fomenting a revolution by offering punters a cashback reward for buying a product. She looks just like what she is: a middle-aged mum.
But that was the point of the app: Edadeal is designed to help mums get their shopping done quickly, cheaply and pleasantly. It helps you find the best bargains – and Russians love a bargain – but it also works out which stores are closest or are the most pleasant to shop in and suggests an itinerary that takes the least travelling, has the smallest bill, and puts you in the shops you like the best.
“I didn't set the company up because I had a good idea that I thought would make a lot of money,” Shagarina tells me over coffee in Berlin just over the road from Bahnhof Zoo where she is weekending with a friend. “I was just concerned with solving problems that affect my own personal life.”
Shagarina also happens to have a background in tech, having worked as a product manager for Russia’s internet giant Yandex for many years. But she also has an energy and focus on the problem she is trying to solve. A degree in mathematics from Moscow State University is probably useful too; it is for certain fairly common amongst Russia’s leading technophiles.
Edadeal (a compound of the Russian word for “food” and
the English “deal”) is still a young venture, although in 2017 the app had more than doubled its number of users to more than 5mn and was ranked the 23rd largest app in the country, according to market research company GFK.
The concept of the Edadeal site is simple. The home page looks like an online grocery store with lists of products you can buy – everyday things like groceries, cleaning products, pizzas, cosmetics – the kind of things that fills very family’s weekly shopping basket.
The clever bit is the site works with over 360 retail stores and
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works out what is the most valuable way to buy these things for you. That doesn't just mean saving money – although discounts and deals are a big part of the offering – but it also takes into account how far away the various shops are from you and from each other and how much you like (or dislike) going to each shop. How willing are you to walk another 500m to save that extra RUB500 on your shopping?
The route you choose is important, especially to Muscovites. Shagarina points out that the Russian capital’s legendary bad traffic means everyone has a route-planning habit. You think carefully about which shop to go to as there are parts of the city to avoid at certain times of day or some destinations
“The site works with over 360 retail stores and works out what is the most valuable way to buy these things for you”
are much easier to get to than they are to get back from. In Moscow the order you visit stores can make a big difference to the time it takes.
Moreover Edadeal fits with a general trend in Russia where shop- pers are moving away from large malls and making more use of smaller local stores that have become more refined in their prod- uct mix. After 20 years of development there are stores in every direction; Edadeal allows punters to pick through the choice to find the best combination of price, effort and pleasure.
Its clearly a site set up by a working mum and Shagarina did most of the ground work while she was on maternity leave having her three children in short succession after careers as a TV reporter for Russia’s First Channel and running the Burson-Marsteller office in Russia for a decade.
“I never considered myself to be a PR person, but a product manager. People came to us with their products and the