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July 2020 www.intellinews.com I Page 3
Russia, was quoted as saying by Kommersant, adding that new privileges for the tech sectors should not be accompanied by the removal of existing ones.
Mikhail Pribochiy, managing director of Kaspersky Lab for Russia, CIS and the Baltics, added that
he hopes that ideas cancelling out the support
The pandemic gives a boost to Russia's online retail segment
At the beginning of the lockdown period, consumers were very cautious, but gradually sales took off, and for some product groups, the growth was significant, Alexei Chistyakov, deputy sales director of IT-Grad, which is part of MTS group, was quoted as saying by Kommersant business daily.
The e-commerce client base in Russia increased by 37% and 11%, or 17mn and 11mn people respectively, in April and May 2020 from 46mn clients in early 2020, VTB Capital (VTBC) reported on June 25.
According to Chistyakov, prior to the pandemic, Russians were less active in online shopping compared with residents of other countries, such as China.
"[In China], even before the coronavirus pandemic, about 75% of internet users shopped online, and therefore, there was no spike
in online sales [due to the coronavirus]," he said. "In Russia, as we've seen, the situation
is different."
Stocking up on food
Predictably, the lockdown period, introduced in Russia in late March, prompted many people to stay indoors and order food online.
measures for the IT sector will eventually be abandoned.
On the other hand, the reinstatement of the VAT on software sales could push major Russian
IT companies to more actively look for foreign customers as software exports are not subject to the VAT.
"We weren't ready for a substantial increase in demand even though we had been preparing for a lockdown, considering various scenarios,
from a loose one to a hard one," added Arina Avanesova, head of the project office of the online branch of major food retailer Perekrestok.
She added that the average purchase in the online supermarket has remained higher than it was before the lockdown and the online retailer was able to make adjustment to its business model
to accommodate the increased demand.
"In May and June, demand stabilized, but it remains higher than in the same periods of
last year," she concluded. "We also sped up the process of hiring new employees, including those from the industries that were hit most hard by the coronavirus."
According to Yevgeny Mishchenko, head of the e-commerce division at Metro retailer, at peak period during the lockdown, the number of orders was several times higher than at the beginning
of the year.
Non-food retail
Meanwhile, not just food retailers but also clothing companies saw a surge in online purchases during the lockdown.
Clothing retailer Tom Tailor has seen a 45% year- on-year increase in sales, noted the company's general director for Russia and CIS Sergei Kondakov, adding that although brick-and-mortar stores have reopened, online sales continue to grow.