The market of cross-border Internet trade is waiting for an increase of 23%
This year, the turnover of the Russian market of the cross-border Internet trade in monetary terms will increase by almost 23% of the year, to 404 billion rubles, analysts predict. A year ago, the dynamics was almost five times lower due to the problems of the then problems of Russian counterparties in China banks, from where almost the entire volume of purchased online products is imported now. Despite the positive forecasts, the share of cross-border trade in the total volume of the E-Commerce industry in the Russian Federation remains small.
As predicted in the joint study of Data Insight and the GBS logistics operator, according to the results of 2025, the turnover of the Russian market of cross-border Internet trade with private individuals can amount to 40 billion rubles, which is 22.8% more than a year by a year, and the number of orders to grow by 24.4%, up to 209 million pieces. This will be a noticeable growth, given that last year, according to Data Insight and GBS, the indicators increased by 5.1%, respectively, to 313 billion rubles, and 3.7%, up to 168 million orders.
Such a low dynamics is due to the fact that in mid-2024 there were problems with paying for goods purchased in China, which account for about 98% of the total number of orders within the framework of a cross-border Internet trade, explain in Data Insight. Then the Chinese banks increased the requirements for Russian counterparties, which significantly complicated the mutual settlements. Now, analysts emphasize, the situation with payments has normalized. Based on, including from this conjuncture, the Data Insight and GBS forecast for 2025 already looks positive.
Despite the noticeable predictable growth in the revolutions of the cross-border Internet trade, this segment is still insignificant in the total share of the total E-Commerce-3%, according to the Association of Internet Training Companies (Akit).
Experts recorded the surge of the segment in 2018-2019, when its share in the total turnover of the Russian market online trade reached 30%. But due to the pandemic, when the logistics chains were seriously violated, and then, due to large-scale Western sanctions imposed after February 2022 in relation to the Russian Federation, this share fell ten times.
In addition, a reduction in the share of cross-border trade contributed to the reduction of the minimum threshold of duty-free goods from abroad from € 1,000 to € 200 from April 2024, they note in Data Insight. Therefore, private buyers are now reducing orders of goods from abroad. Now, in the cross-border Internet trade segment, entrepreneurs who purchase goods abroad have become active in small wholesale and already domestic consumers purchase these goods, explains Olga Sumishevskaya consulting company ONE Story. According to her, the B2B segment of the Russian imported trade market in 2024 increased by more than 30% of the year, B2C – by 20%.
For singers, such products remains highly margin, since inside the country it is sold with an 80 percent margin, said the founder of the coin of the Sholchev consulting agency Evgeny Sholchev.
According to him, in 2024, buyers ordered Chinese -made goods 60% more often than a year earlier.
Among the Russian online retailers working with foreign delivery, in the first quarter of this year, growth is noted in CDEK.SHOpping. The volume of sales from the company increased by 11.3% a year by the year, to 1.15 billion rubles. The most actively grew perfume sales (by 81%), the care products (by 42%) and children’s goods (by 31%). Including growth is also associated with the overall expansion of the assortment, which increased by 72%, to 6.2 million positions. Ozon Global does not note significant changes in the demand for foreign goods. The Wildberries press service explained that the demand for goods from abroad on the marketplace is growing, including due to the low base of the beginning of last year, when the platform began to deliver orders from the PRC.
