The marketplace has been launched with the support of payments global leader Visa, communications agency Banda, and informational assistance from the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine.

About Made with Bravery

The marketplace features items of different categories for different ages and genders from the best Ukrainian manufacturers: clothes, footwear, accessories, household goods, as well as food and beverages that have a long shelf life and can be delivered.

Made with bravery delivers to many countries. You can view the complete list here. You can view the marketplace website at https://shop.brave.ua and learn more about buying and paying for your order here.

“We want the entire world to fall in love with Ukrainian products and establish a belief that Ukrainian means cool. That’s why we created the Made with bravery marketplace. And that is why we have high criteria for the marketplace merchants. Our goal is to pleasantly surprise foreign buyers with Ukrainian products and quality of the service and to make “made in Ukraine” an integral part of their everyday lives,”

explains Mykola Paliyenko, CEO and co-founder of EVO.

The marketplace transfers 5% of the price of each purchased item to United24, the fundraising platform initiated by the President of Ukraine. A special platform commission directs these funds to the relevant programs for rebuilding Ukraine. Furthermore, an additional 5% is transferred to United24 to support and rebuild the country if the payment is made with a Visa card.

“Supporting small and medium enterprises is one of the global aspirations of Visa. Ukrainian business people heroically continue to work in tough conditions, holding the country’s economy on their shoulders. It is our duty, as big businesses, to create conditions for expanding their markets. Thanks to the initiative of all partners, this project not only opens international opportunities for Ukrainian producers but also supports the rebuilding of Ukraine,”

notes Vira Platonova, Senior Vice President and Regional Director of Visa in 17 countries.

Why is it important

According to data from the Kyiv School of Economics, the total amount of direct damage to infrastructure reaches $114.5 billion. Therefore, supporting the reconstruction of the country is very urgent, because it requires significant funds. Every purchase at Made with bravery is a brick in the “new walls” of Ukraine. It is the underlying idea behind the first communication campaign of Made with bravery. It is illustrated by this promo video.

“With our first communication, we want to convey the very idea of the marketplace to foreigners: by buying Ukrainian goods you are helping rebuild Ukraine. Every purchase has a new sense, becoming a metaphorical brick in the new walls. We used the characters in the video to emphasize the bravery of our producers, who continue to create and manufacture despite the destruction caused by the Russian missiles. The video itself was made by hand in the stop motion style to convey the spirit of the Ukrainian craft better,”

explains Oleksiy Dyvysenko, Creative Director of the project at Banda.

Everyone can become an ambassador of the project and support Ukrainian producers by spreading information about the marketplace among foreigners. You can download the visuals here.

What is the idea behind fyrtel.market? How did you come up with it?

At fyrtel.market, we believe in local businesses. They provide high-quality products and are an integral part of our city landscapes. We aim to enable these businesses and help them thrive.

Our goal is for fyrtel.market to be the go-to partner for independent food entrepreneurs. If someone is running or thinking of opening an independent grocery store, artisanal bakery, or deli — they should think of fyrtel.market as a natural step in setting up their business.

We are focused on driving demand for our partners, but the potential for collaboration goes far beyond that. We want to digitize local retailers. We aim to be the leading partner for local businesses in Europe.

What problems does the startup solve?

The challenge independent businesses have is that they are competing against companies that have a scale and budget advantage. We are leveling the playing field. We want to democratize e-grocery. From the demand side, our customers appreciate local shops and the products they offer. However, in our busy day-to-day lives, we struggle to find time to visit our favorite neighborhood stores. So, we settle for less. In many cases, chain stores end up getting our daily business because of longer opening hours, number of locations, a wide range of products in one place and deliveries.

fyrtel.market is giving people convenient access to the products they love. From the people and places they know. In an environmentally friendly way. Our service allows customers to purchase from multiple shops in one basket and have it all delivered. You don’t have to wait for the weekend to buy products you can feel good about. We’ll deliver them to your doorstep. 

Please, tell us a bit more about the marketplace. How does it work? How many stores has it already connected? How many orders does it process per month? What is the average check size?

Our logistical model is built specifically for urban and suburban areas, the type of business we interact with, and the type of product we deliver. From the start, we have put an emphasis on courier efficiency and environmentally friendly deliveries.

So far, we have over 200 local stores in three cities: Poznań, Wrocław & Warsaw. The number is growing dynamically. We process around 6,000-7,000 orders per month, and the average order is around 70-80 zł.

Who are your target markets and customers? 

We target all cities with over 500,000 inhabitants, mostly people who care about quality, sustainability, and local vibe.

What is the business model of fyrtel.market? How do you monetize the service? 

We charge a commission from every order + a delivery fee from the customer. 

fyrtel.market is planning to spend the proceeds on further scaling in Poland and abroad. What will be the next cities and why?

Our next city will be Berlin. We see a huge potential for our model there, as the city is filled with great local stores and clients are already used to delivering services. We truly believe that this will open new chances for further growth.

• Founded in 2021 by Pasi Ilola, Starcart provides consumer service platform for online shopping that works like an aggregator. It automatically selects online stores where consumers can get the products they want. Thus, making the process easier, cheaper, and faster.
• Inventure, a venture capital firm with over 70 companies in its portfolio, including Wolt, Detectify, Blueprint Genetics, investment in Swappie, and Insurello, led this seed round. Such angel investors as serial entrepreneurs Ville Vsterinen and Niko Derome, co-founder of Supercell, also backed the round.

“We want to do to online shopping what Booking.com has done to travel. Few people go to the websites of hotels and airlines anymore to book trips – they use aggregators. Until now, there haven’t been any aggregators for buying physical goods,”

Startcart CEO and Founder Pasi Ilola talks about the startup.

• Using the fresh funding, Starcart will consolidate its operations in Finland. Later next year, the company is planning to expand across Europe.

Claid API automatically improves user-generated pictures and brings them in line with a marketplace’s brand guidelines in just 1-2 seconds. As developers told AIN.Capital, Claid has already optimized over 100M user-generated photos for some of the biggest US companies.

Claid is a product of AI-editing startup Let’s Enhance, founded in 2018 by Sofi Shvets and Vlad Pranskevičius. The startup’s team works fully remotely with offices in San Francisco and R&D centers in CEE. Within the past year the team has tripled. The AI-editing startup crossed $1M in annual revenue and raised a $3 million Seed round to help marketplaces and Fortune500 companies scale faster with next-gen AI technology Claid.

Claid API’s capabilities

New Claid API 2.0 enables to automate editing of any number of user-generated photos, control enhancement settings by changing a few variables, and achieve a consistent and beautiful look that boosts conversions.

• Quick integration. Intuitive API design, developer-friendly docs and simple web interface to manage and monitor API access, use Amazon S3, Google Cloud Storage, or any public web folder for storage integrations — no coding skills required.
• Simple and flexible. Combine operations to transform user-generated content to your standards. Use industry-specific presets for eCommerce, real estate, food, travel, printing, and other marketplaces. 
• Made easy for teams. Create users with different sets of rights and give access to Claid’s features to different people and departments in the company, securely connect cloud storage to process images.

The launch of Claid API follows Let’s Enhance’s $3 million Seed round, announced in October 2021. With investment in AI being the core of the fundraising, the team plans to scale, continue its fundamental AI research and build new integrations. Claid API by Let’s Enhance will empower opportunities for the millions of B2B companies around the world.

Claid’s clients

Online marketplaces have little control over the quality of user-provided photos, while visuals must work double-duty to convince potential buyers. Studies show that quality user-generated images invoke more trust and outperform stock images. Finding a way to improve user-generated images is crucial for P2P platforms because higher trust inevitably leads to better engagement and more transactions.

“90% of online shoppers rely on product imagery when making a purchase decision. That’s why we are excited to launch Claid API 2.0 as it helps businesses to make the most of the users’ content. From now there is no need to invest in editors teams as ​​all catalog manipulations can be done instantly in the cloud.”

Sofiia Shvets, CEO and Co-founder of Claid & Let’s Enhance

With many customizations, Claid API is now more compatible than ever with businesses of all sizes. Companies link the API, and neural networks do all the editing — adjusting image size, colors, and background to the required parameters.

“With the rapid development of generative AI technologies, we are excited to bring them to businesses in an easy-to-integrate package. After a quick setup, Claid instantly improves the quality of imagery on any website or mobile app, which was not technically possible before.”

Vlad Pranskevičius, CTO and Co-founder of Claid & Let’s Enhance

• Founded in 2020 by Michal Logwiniuk and Paweł Głogowski, fyrtel.market is a platform and an app that enables easy online shopping from local retailers. The marketplace connects over 200 local stores in three Polish cities: Poznan, Wroclaw, and Warsaw. It allows placing orders from multiple stores in one cart.
• Movens Capital led the €850,000 seed round. It is a Warsaw-based venture capital firm investing in startups focused on AI, fintech, SaaS, and marketplaces. The fund recently invested in Doctor.One and led the investment for Pixblocks. CofounderZone also participated in the round, joined by several angel investors.

“Fyrtel.market is solving a very important problem in the premium food market. In one application, consumers gain access to their favorite local stores. We appreciate the unique logistics model that enables the company to achieve profitability quickly, despite the low delivery costs for consumers,”

Artur Banach, Partner at Movens VC, about the investment.

• Since 2020, fyrtel has grown by 500% year-on-year, generating approximately 50,000 orders so far. According to the company, the marketplace has high customer retention and a sustainable logistics model.
• The fresh funding will allow for further scaling in Poland and abroad. The company plans to start operations in Berlin sometime later.

• Founded in 2018 by Marko Lastik, Eurora develops an e-commerce suite of customs compliance tools. The startup’s AI/ML-based platform automates tax, compliance, and customs services by creating e-declarations for EU duties and taxes via simple API integration.
• The B2B platform is helpful for online sellers, marketplaces, logistics, and postal companies, as well as tax and customs authorities. Eurora provides services for over 200 clients worldwide, delivering over 96% accuracy for e-commerce packages.
• The Series A round was led by Amsterdam-based Connected Capital. It is a venture capital and private equity firm focusing on European B2B SaaS companies. The existing investors, Change Ventures and Equity United, joined in the round.

“Eurora has built a platform which is significantly improving compliance while reducing package delays and lowering costs for e-commerce parcels shipped into Europe,”

Shaffy Roell from Connected Capital explains the investment.

• Earlier, the company has already raised a $3 million seed funding from Change Ventures and some angel investors.
• Eurora will spend the new funding on geographical expansion in the UK, the US, as well as the Middle East. It will also boost product development and potential add-ons.

• Founded in 2021 by Filip Szczepanik and Kuba Karyś, Selmo develops an e-commerce platform that facilitates sales via social media, like Facebook Messenger.
• The Selmo application works like a sales assistant — by connecting to Facebook Messenger, it automates the collection and execution of orders.

“Sellers start their business on social media and streaming platforms, using the most basic tools that fail as sales volumes increase. We help to improve their operations and support in post-sale processes, helping them to focus on important things,”

Selmo Co-founder Kuba Karyś explains the platform.

• The $240K investment was led by Tar Heel Capital Pathfinder. It is a Warsaw-based venture builder and a venture capital fund operating since 2017. According to Cruchbase, the fund’s previous investments include NaturalAntibody, Booste, Portside, and Gizmi.
• Using the fresh funding, Selmo plans to push its product to the Spanish market. The company also wants to develop the Instagram integration and launch new functionalities.

The details of the deal

• On January 31, 2022, the Nigerian-based venture Jiji announced its full acquisition of the Ghana-based classifieds heavyweight Tonaton.
• Jiji and Tonaton users will now have access to a larger network of buyers and sellers, which will significantly increase trading opportunity and aggregate user base in what is seen as a major market consolidation in the classifieds sector.
• With Jiji’s move to a large-scale presence in the African continent, and following its acquisition of OLX in 2019, and its recent acquisition of Cars45 in 2021, the deal sees the company well-positioned to tap into a larger share of the African market.
• With the deep penetration of Tonaton in the Ghanaian classifieds sector as the go-to platform and factoring in its leading position in Ghana’s transactional used auto market, Jiji has secured a reliable base towards streamlining its services to a projected (SSA) market of 400 million-plus users. It is a market in which it currently sits as the leader in several key countries such as Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, and Uganda, amounting to over $10 billion in gross merchandise value.

About Jiji and Tonaton

• Jiji is a leading online marketplace in Africa co-founded by Anton Volianskyi and Vladimir Mnogoletniy. With operations across five countries, the platform attracts over 12 million unique users monthly that engage with over 4 million ads with a total value of over $10 billion.
• The company is the enterprise behind the Jiji app, the #1 application by downloads in the Shopping category on the Google Play Store in Nigeria, and currently the highest-rated e-commerce app in the country.
• Jiji already holds leadership positions in Ghana and Kenya. Additionally, the marketplace operates in Uganda and Tanzania.
• Tonaton is a leader classified advertisements website operating in Ghana. Launched in 2013, the site hosts user-generated free advertisements sorted by various categories. 
• Tonaton, a subsidiary of Saltside, was the main Jiji competitor in Ghana at the time of its purchase by Jiji earlier this month. However, Tonaton has quickly grown in popularity thanks to innovations that make it easier for users to buy and sell online, a strategy aligned with Jiji’s mission. As a result, both Jiji’s and Tonaton’s apps are consistently ranked as the top shopping apps in the Google Play Store in the countries where they operate.

“With OLX and Cars45 under Jiji’s umbrella, we are getting close to becoming a regional leader in classifieds. Jiji is the largest e-commerce company in Africa by GMV (more than $10 billion), leading in small to high-involvement key categories such as cars and real estate. We hold the rank of the best app in e-commerce proudly with a rating of 4.5/5, a gauge of satisfaction from our millions and millions of daily users, – clarified CEO and co-founder Anton Volianskyi.

– The picture is much larger. Our goal is to build a company that gives every user in Africa the opportunity to buy goods cheaper and reduce environmental impact through what is effectively a developing lateral economy built on a safe and productive recirculation of valuable goods. We are currently creating at full-tilt hundreds of thousands of new jobs throughout Africa, which allows us to effectively address and help remedy gaps in both unemployment and frictional unemployment.”

• In June 2021, there were rumors that Rozetka announced its entry into the Uzbekistan market and registered its logo and trademark in Uzbekistan. But at that time, the company gave an official answer that they had not decided yet if Rozetka would appear in Uzbekistan.
• As for now, Rozetka doesn’t have a marketplace in Uzbekistan and sells all the goods under its own brand. However, the company plans to launch it in 2022.
• Rozetka operates only in Tashkent (the capital of Uzbekistan); it has two delivery points and offers free delivery within the city. The company plans to open four more delivery points in Tashkent.
• Moreover, the retailer works on a Ukraine-Uzbekistan cross-border project (international trade) to allow selling millions of goods available on rozetka.com.ua in Uzbekistan and importing goods from Uzbekistan into Ukraine.

“Uzbekistan is an increasingly developing country with a 35-million population; we believe it has a large potential, and hopefully, such promising projects as ours will be supported by the state. Now we are moving forward pretty well. We plan to open four more delivery points in Tashkent and then in regions. These are Samarkand, Namangan, Andijan, Bukhara, and Fergana. We also cooperate with local and international last mile vendors,” said Georgy Fesenko, CEO at Rozetka Uzbekistan.

Scallium is an IT team that develops complex solutions for large online retailers and a PIM system for managing product content. In one of the previous cases, the platform was used as an IT foundation in the Epicentr Marketplace development, the biggest Ukrainian retailer.

Marketplace is a conditional concept. They are completely different, and often a company creates a business model with all the marketplace features but does not call its model with this word.

Let’s take this definition – a marketplace is a kind of retail platform where many participants work with each other. One platform usually has many options for interaction.

We at Scallium distinguish 5 stages in the evolution of marketplaces:

1. Classic e-commerce (online store)
2. Dropshipping Platform
3. System Marketplace
4. Scalable Marketplace
5. Ecosystem

You can go in different ways. You can start with a traditional online store and develop an ecosystem step by step. Or you can remain a robust niche store if you don’t want to become a marketplace. Or you can launch a marketplace from scratch without previous stages of traditional retail.

The main thing is to understand the fundamental differences between these stages in terms of managing a business. Then any path will not be overshadowed by problems and losses in profits.

So let’s consider each level in detail.

Level No. 1 – traditional e-commerce

This is not a platform model yet. Value runs linearly from business to consumer. That’s not bad. Many excellent online stores are profitable and growing.

The advantage of the traditional model is a high level of control over all processes. The shortcoming is poor scalability. A business is limited by resources: goods, the number of warehouses, the number of personnel hired, etc.

The online store team provides all operational tasks:

• Marketing
• Product content creation
• Updating price and availability
• Assortment management
• Payment / Issuance of receipts
• Delivery of goods
• Customer service
• Refunds

If you are faced with the task of scaling, an online store has two options:

1. Increase operating costs. But you should keep in mind that the number of control points also grows with the growth of the showcase. The more people in your team, the harder it is to manage them.
2. Increase assortment through dropshipping.

Choosing this strategy, the online store moves to the next level of e-commerce development.

Level No. 2 — dropshipping platform

We call this stage the transition model between traditional e-commerce and marketplace.

At this level, the delivery of the goods is handed over to third-party suppliers. But this is not a marketplace yet, as the processes are not automated. Suppliers often send their product catalogs in excel; then, information is manually uploaded by the content managers of the online store. At the same time, the store owner partly shares the responsibility with the merchants. Still, everything else like assortment management, marketing, transaction support, search for suppliers – remains business responsibility on the side of the storefront owner.

All this managing operations does not allow you to quickly respond to market demands. In addition, such a model is challenging to scale because time is wasted on attracting vendors and expanding the range.

Nevertheless, it is easier to grow here than in the traditional e-commerce stage. The business receives a virtual shelf and at the same time spends fewer resources for assortment range: it does not purchase goods, does not store them in a warehouse. The main task is to accept orders from customers and transfer them to merchants.

Level No. 3 — system marketplace

When a company becomes a marketplace, it no longer sells directly; it organizes a space where others sell. Now business creates conditions for other sellers.

The functions differ from traditional e-commerce even more. Most of the business operations for fulfilling and processing orders are outsourced. Thus, the business focuses on a growth strategy:

It takes time to create conditions and rules for all participants in the marketplace. There can be experiments in the business model and the processes. In this model, fast hypothesis testing is still difficult (unlike the next level), but once the conditions and rules are created, the storefront can scale with hundreds of thousands of sellers. This is an early-stage platform model.

At this level, you will need an IT marketplace platform – we call it a marketplace back-office. But to become a full-fledged marketplace, it is not enough to integrate an IT platform with an online storefront. The changes in your business model must be reflected in the company strategy. After all, a business now has at least two client types: a buyer and a merchant. The need to reform and review the business is the only challenge of this model. Instead, you receive high advantages: scaling and dynamics ability.

Level No. 4 — scalable marketplace

A scalable marketplace differs from the previous stage in a high level of automation.

Most of the processes work independently if you have the necessary IT infrastructure: management of sellers, content, sales analytics, sales and marketing channels automation. IT solutions also implement the logic for calculating bonuses/penalties for suppliers based on automatic SLA (Service Level Agreement) control and marketing tools for sellers like recommended products, product bundles, crossed-out prices, and more.

Business becomes flexible and adaptive. At this level, a complex of IT solutions as one large system helps the business to scale when in the previous level 3, different solutions worked as separate products: a powerful CRM, PIM system, a system for working with orders, BI analytics, and more.

So at this level, the company quickly adjusts to external market challenges and can easily test new hypotheses. Therefore, this model quickly scales. I call it the Agile level of e-commerce development.

Level No. 5 — Retail Ecosystem

An ecosystem is a self-developing platform model – a format that constantly transforms and provides more value for the client.

Let’s look at the example of the Alibaba Group ecosystem.

They have everything from the wholesale platform Alibaba and retail platform Aliexpress to services aimed exclusively at the Chinese market. They launched a video service like Youtube called YouKu, their web browser, logistics, fulfillment, Big Data service, and much more.

In other words, Alibaba covers the entire cycle of different needs from different types of customers. These products make it possible to touch Alibaba Group’s products and services within a single ecosystem.

The thing is platform business model develops permanently and independently.

You have more sellers > you have more products > you have more traffic > you have more sales. Thus it is a sustainable growing circle.

Back in the old days, creating an online store required a lot of money, knowledge, and an expensive IT team. Then ready-made solutions and website constructors appeared in the market. The task has been simplified, and every second business created its online shop.

Today something similar is starting with marketplaces development. Turnkey back-office solutions are already in the market. They help to launch a marketplace relatively painlessly, using someone else’s experience. At the same time, the market is not yet oversaturated; there are many opportunities for consolidation and promotion. This is the perfect time for changes. The main thing to remember is that everything does not end at the marketplace stage, but it’s only just the beginning.

Author: Andrey Pavlenko, CEO of Scallium

• In most locations where Etsy Payments is not currently available, new shops are temporarily unable to onboard to Etsy. As of April 26, 2021, most sellers opening new shops on Etsy are required to onboard with Etsy Payments. 
• Etsy Payments is not available in Ukraine. Click here to find out where the service is available.
• Etsy confirmed this information and promised to work on expanding the availability of Etsy Payments in other countries.
• The company also noted that if you have previously created a draft shop but did not open it, you will not be able to launch it now either. If you have a closed shop, you most likely will not be able to reopen it unless you can accept Etsy Payments.
• Etsy added that the Etsy Payment service is necessary for secure transactions and comfortable payment of purchases by users.

According to the company’s press office, Edible Innovations Hub will provide comprehensive solutions for creating, managing, and scaling up franchises.

Edible Innovations Hub

As stated by the founder of Edible Arrangements, Tariq Farid, the Ukrainian market is attractive in terms of local programmers’ technical expertise.

“Searching for new technological solutions for Edible Arrangements, we discovered the Ukrainian IT market for the first time. After working with Ukrainian specialists for a while, I came to believe that Ukraine does offer amazing opportunities and prospects in the development of many niches,” Tariq Farid notes.

Moreover, as stressed by Edible Arrangements, the Ukrainian IT cluster works according to Western standards and thus has a better understanding of American consumers’ requirements for the product.

“Besides, we are interested in the development of solutions for our in-house systems that will add dynamics to our business growth, as well as for customer interaction systems. I am sure Ukrainian IT experience is enough to develop the infrastructure the way that the users expect,” Tariq Farid says.

Currently, Edible Innovations Hub looks to hire UI/UX, JavaScript, and mobile technology specialists.

About Edible Arrangements

Edible Arrangements is a US-based franchising business that specializes in creating treats and fruit bouquets from natural ingredients.

In 2020, the company was named a winner of the year for “Most Innovative Product Introduction” in Franchise Update Media’s 2020 Innovation Awards.

It is reported that more than 3,189 goods are available on the Makro website at the time of launch. The company plans to expand the range to 8,639 items.

“All goods are collected by professional pickers, who carefully check the integrity of the packaging, the proper trade dress, and shelf life. If the goods chosen by the buyer are out of stock, a picker will offer an equivalent product both in quality and price. There is also no need to worry about the safety of the goods: they are delivered in special thermal boxes that ensure proper temperature conditions,” commented Zafar Urunbayev, Operations Director of Zakaz.ua in Uzbekistan.

Why Uzbekistan

According to the representatives of the company, Uzbekistan has a very versatile market. Moreover, in Uzbekistan, there is less competition in the delivery of goods than in Ukraine. Therefore, the company saw great potential in business development in this country.

“On the one hand, this country has a strong shopping culture at farmer’s markets with a friendly talk with a seller. On the other hand, the young generation of big cities likes to use modern technologies and try new services,” added Zakaz.ua.

Before each launch, the company’s analysts thoroughly analyze the markets, considering a lot of parameters: Internet penetration, e-commerce market development, competition, the solvency of population, etc. Based on these data, Zakaz.ua makes decisions about the country to launch the service.

To recap, in February 2020, Zakaz.ua raised a €5 million investment. The lead investor was the current shareholder of the service, Chernovetskyi Investment Group (CIG).

Previously, Zakaz.ua also tried to gain a foothold in the U.S. market as the Cartfresh brand, but the service was closed. Later, Zakaz.ua was launched in the capital of Moldova, Chisinau. In Ukraine, Zakaz.ua operates in 15 cities, particularly in Kyiv, Kharkiv, Dnipro, Odesa, and Lviv.

The website domain is Rozetka.md: it is in the Russian language, and the prices are specified in Moldovan leu. In Chisinau, Rozetka also has an offline store and a service center, where you can pick up or return the order.

The website indicates that delivery to any point in the country is carried out by Nova Poshta. Delivery time: 3-7 days.

The range of products differs from the Ukrainian one. For example, there is no section ‘Plumbing and Repair,’ as well as no alcoholic beverages in the Moldavian Rozetka.

The editorial board of AIN.UA asked for comments from the Rozetka press service but did not receive any additional information at the time of publication of this piece of news.

Rozetka is not the only e-commerce company from Ukraine that entered the Moldovan market. Earlier, Zakaz.ua, a service for the delivery of goods from supermarkets, was launched in the country.

In Moldova, there are three Metro stores in total, two of them are in Kishinev.

Where does Zakaz.ua work?

Zakaz.ua is represented in major cities of Ukraine: Kyiv, Kharkiv, Dnipro, Odesa, Lviv, Zhytomyr, Vinnytsia, and Zaporizhzhia. Delivery is carried out from Fozzy, Auchan, Metro, Novus, and Mega Market stores.

Previously, Zakaz.ua tried to set in the US market under the Cartfresh brand, but the service was closed.

Сompetitive Ukraine

According to representatives of Zakaz.ua in a comment to Retailers.ua, the service does not see serious competition in the neighboring market. At the same time, competition is growing in Ukraine: Glovo entered the market, which soon became an official partner of Auchan.

How did UNI.UA come about

Aleksey Rozenkov and Roman Kirdanov both work in the field of copyright protection. Kirdanov is the managing partner at IPS, a company that develops and implements IP management systems. Rozenkov worked in various companies in this field.

The idea to create a project in the sphere of Ukrainian art came to partners when they noticed that Ukraine is not present in Google Arts & Culture. In 2015, IPS created a record-keeping system for intellectual property, collection, and distribution of royalties, and in 2018, UNI.UA was built on its basis. The project received support from the Ukrainian Cultural Fund.

What is UNI.UA

The online platform consists of three sections:

1. Registry of objects of art or national treasure.
2. An e-commerce mechanism for the sale of licenses for the use of such objects (royalty collection).
3. The mechanism for distribution of royalties between copyright holders.

What is its mission

The mission of UNI.UA is to connect consumers with copyright holders. Moreover, not only in the Ukrainian market but internationally. As the founders of the project put it, currently there are many intermediaries between the parties, which makes the working mechanism long and opaque. The marketplace will bring them face to face.

UNI.UA marketplace allows authors to earn money off their work and make themselves known to the world. And museums and owners of private collections can monetize their wealth.

Roman Kirdanov comments:

“According to the Ministry of Culture, in Ukraine, there are 3,000 museums – of which only 4 are digitized. That is, the majority of objects of creativity do not have digital copies for reproduction. All documentation is in hard copies only.

Movie archives – more than 60 km of film. Such objects have their own lifespan, even if all storage conditions are met. Digital copies are a more reliable way to preserve the country’s cultural heritage.

In the Ukrainian archives, you can stumble upon records of Sosyura reciting his poems, audiobooks of Agatha Christie with a licensed British translation, unique shots of the Lumiere brothers… We know that theoretically, it is there, but we have never seen it. All these objects must be carefully protected from the risk of physical destruction and they should be made available to the public.

In the modern world, the value of cultural heritage remains uncertain, because the product itself is missing. However, having digital copies of objects, we are able to promote them as a product and create additional value.”

Monetization

The marketplace acts as a Proxy in the transaction between the copyright holder and the consumer, and for performing this function it receives 10% of the cost of the purchased license, half the price of the current market.

What can you buy on UNI.UA

Today, the platform works with four basic types of intellectual property: music, audiovisual works, photographs and paintings (digital copies).

The Ukrkinohronika SE, Odessa Art Museum, Rokstar LLC and private photographers have already put their digital copies up on the site. The founders also encourage Ukrainian museums, galleries, publishers, and production studios to collaborate.

Who can buy such licenses

Anyone for commercial (production studios, advertising agencies, television channels, manufacturers of souvenir products) or non-commercial use (for training, research, etc.).

They will have direct access to digital copies of copyrighted objects online.

How much can objects of art cost

The cost of the license is determined by its owner. Non-commercial use does not require a license, so the price will include only the cost of preparing a digital copy.

“We took into account that the global intellectual property market is worth $182 billion, according to Forbes. This market is one of those that are growing rapidly. It grows at a rate of 20% per year, comments Roman.

Accordingly, authors, in order to determine the cost of their work, must analyze the general data sets in this area, and then do one of the following:

• indicate the price themselves;
• indicate that the price will be negotiable;
• indicate that the price will be determined by the market. Then the system displays the average market price, depending on the region, the features of the object as well as other factors.

Basically, if authors will regularly publish their works, they will quickly understand the cost, based on the existing demand.”

The startup will spend the funds raised to further develop its platform with the help of which thredUP plans to conquer the market of used luxury clothing (estimated at $50 billion). But few people know that almost half of thredUP’s engineering team is based in Ukraine. 

Director of the company’s Ukrainian office, Anton Naumenko, told AIN.UA about how the Californian company put together a team in Ukraine, how many people are currently working on the platform, and what the Ukrainian office of thredUP looks like.

What is thredUP

thredUP was founded in 2009 by three fellow students at Harvard Business School: James Reinhart, Oliver Lubin, and Chris Homer. Initially, it was a platform for exchanging men’s shirts based on the P2P model – that is, the platform did not intervene in the process, providing only a showcase and means communication. For 10 years, the startup survived several pivots, becoming the largest marketplace for the resale of used women’s and children’s clothing. 

The P2P model was switched to a managed marketplace model: now people only send clothes to thredUP (delivery is paid for by the company), and the marketplace takes care of the rest.

Marketplace experts check the shipments, sort things – the best items are selected for placement, and what is not suitable for sale on the site is sent for secondary sale. So clothes can even reach the Ukrainian second-hand.

Sorted items are photographed and posted on thredUP.com.

The profit from each sale is divided between the site and the supplier depending on the value of the item. For example, if a T-shirt is sold for $13, the supplier will receive no more than 10% – the rest will go to cover the costs of thredUP. But from the sale of an evening dress or branded handbag, the value of which exceeds $100, about 80% of the amount will be returned to the supplier.

thredUP in numbers

• You can buy on the website clothes of 35,000 brands for 10% of the price.
• thredUP processes about 100,000 items daily – one per second.
• In an hour about 1,000 new products appear on the site.
• Today, the site offers 3 million unique items.
• During its existence thredUP evaluated, photographed and resold 60 million unique wardrobe items from all over America.
• The company is represented in large offline networks – by September 2019 the number of locations will increase to 100. Among them are Macy’s, JCPenney, Stage Stores, and others.
• thredUP.com website is available in 44 countries (Ukraine is not in the list).

What Ukraine has to do with this

The thredUP has its head office in California (the company is currently moving from San Francisco to Auckland), but many employees of the company work remotely while living in other cities and even countries. At the same time, the company did not plan to open remote offices and did not consider Ukraine as its potential R&D base.

It all started with difficulties in hiring programmers – many technology companies in the Valley suffer from a lack of qualified personnel. To fill technical vacancies thredUP decided to seek out remote talents. Several developers were hired through the toptal.com platform (freelance exchange with strict selection parameters), and it so happened that they were all from Ukraine.

By October 2017, the company already had 15 people working for it from Ukraine on an ongoing basis. Then the startup’s management decided to put together a team under the same roof. 

A few words on the growth of the Ukrainian team of thredUP

Anton Naumenko became the leader of the team in Ukraine in April 2018. At that time, thredUP already had 16 people working here. The company hired a recruiter in the summer of 2018. Since then, the Ukrainian team has at least 5 vacancies open at a time. 

“We are in a constant process of finding the most talented engineers,” says Anton. 

Over the year, the team has doubled – to 34 members – and today the team makes up almost half the entire engineering staff of thredUP. 

Recently, Ukrainian engineers moved to a new office and occupied an entire floor of the Horizon Park 2 business center. We show how it looks exclusively at AIN.UA:

What are Ukrainian engineers working on

There is no division of responsibilities – the Ukrainian office is doing all the same things as its American colleagues. All specializations of all engineering teams are presented: software developers, Data Scientists, DevOps, Data engineers, etc.

What is the model of the Ukrainian office of thredUP

The R&D center is organized based on an outsourcing model. 

“The legal framework for daily operations is provided by Alcor, and it deals with all financial issues. Our engineers, like most IT specialists, are FOPs [Individual entrepreneurs]and contract with the group of companies Alcor,” Anton Naumenko explained to AIN.UA.

Peculiarities of work of the Ukrainian office of thredUP

The time difference with the head office is 10 hours. Engineers need to adjust their work schedule to have time to communicate with their colleagues in California in the evening.

“In addition, many roles involve user and employee support at our distribution centers. Sometimes you need to switch to Californian time in order to effectively complete a critical project,” says Naumenko. 

If an engineer works in our business time, then you need to be much more organized. For example, if you just forgot to ask your colleagues something and you cannot finish the job without it, you will waste an entire day.”

Peculiarities of hiring to the Ukrainian team of thredUP

The vast majority of Ukrainian engineers come to the company from outsourcing. This leaves a certain imprint.

“Guys who have worked in outsourcing for a long time focus only on the technical side of problem solving. This leads to the fact that it’s difficult and sometimes impossible for them to switch to the kind of work that requires them to be guided by a business result,” Anton explains.

“It doesn’t matter how much time you spent at work, or how many lines of code you wrote – what matters is how much money you earned or saved for the business, for our customers and suppliers,” says Naumenko. 

According to him, most often applicants do not undergo technical interviews, but there have also been cases when some engineers did not pass the probationary period. The reason was the discrepancy with the cultural values of the company.

“We often refuse applicants if we see that they are motivated only by career growth, only by the financial side or new technologies. The practicality of the engineering approach to developing thredUP products is very important for us. We provide top compensation in the market, and all engineers are given stock options – which respectively puts our selection bar high,” says Naumenko.

Relocation to the U.S.

The company relocates the most talented engineers to the United States. This process is cumbersome and there are no guarantees, as visas of the required type H1B are distributed as a lottery. thredUP annually submits applications for remote engineers from Ukraine, India and other countries, but only those who win visa get a chance to move. 

“At the same time, I can’t say that we have a line of people waiting to relocate, this year only one of 34 engineers applied for a visa,” says Anton.

Why books?

“The Swiss company with Ukrainian roots boasts dozens of released reader models and a cloud service for reading called PocketBook Cloud, so the decision to start selling content was logical and just waiting for its time,” the company explained.

What is already available

At the moment, the store offers several thousand e-books. About 90% of the content is in Ukrainian. The company says that the assortment of content will grow.

The content catalog is divided into categories, which greatly simplifies the navigation and search for the desired book. Fiction, science fiction, detective stories, children’s literature: without even knowing what to read, the user will be able to pick up an interesting book using one of a dozen available categories. 

What’s next

In the future, the new PocketBook store will appear on readers as a native application.

Rocketbook.ua is the first step in the company’s strategy. The company plans to kick off similar platforms in other European countries. Germany is the next country on the list. 

When choosing content for their stores the company will take into account the interests of readers in each particular country.

How the store works

IT Market allows you to buy goods from Ukraine and China and return some of the funds. Saved money can be spent on Intertelecom services like replenishing a mobile account or withdrawing funds to a card.

Various categories of goods are available on IT Market from electronics to clothes. When registering, the user receives a free Intertelecom number.

If you already used the services of the operator, you can register by an existing ID. If you do not have CDMA equipment, you can use the number in the IT-Phone application.

What about cashback

IT Market is divided into two sections: “Goods from Aliexpress” and “Goods from Ukraine”. Shopping in each of them works in different ways.

When ordering from AliExpress, the Ukrainian market acts as a cashback service: you need to find the product in the IT Market catalog but place an order and pay for it on Aliexpress. The user will receive cashback for this, which can be used to pay for Intertelecom services, replenish a mobile account or withdraw funds to a card.

If you buy in the “Goods from Ukraine” section, you can place and pay for orders on the IT Market website. At the same time, instead of cashback, “bonuses” are activated. They can only be used to pay for Intertelecom services. There are relatively few goods from Ukraine: these are smartphones, telecom equipment, mobile service packages.

You can view the full list of cashback conditions on the FAQ page.

Most popular online stores

• eBay (28% of all parcels)
• Amazon (22%)
• 6pm (over 13%)
• Carter`s
• Victoria`s Secret
• H&M

What’s trending

Most often, buyers order clothes and shoes, children’s clothing, gadgets, cosmetics.

According to the director of Nova Poshta International, Yuriy Benevitsky, Ukrainians are attracted by prices, which, as a rule, are lower than in Ukraine, a large selection and good quality of goods.

The cost of an average parcel is $66, and the average weight is 1.6 kg.

Buyer’s profile

Most active buyers are males (59%) aged 25-34 (53%).

Kyivites, who order goods from overseas most often, are followed by residents of Dnipro, Kharkiv, Odesa, and Lviv.

Growth of deliveries from overseas

According to the company, over the past five months, the demand for delivery through NP Shopping service has increased by 27% as compared to the same period last year. There’s a 25% increase in number of Ukrainians buying goods from abroad.

TOP locations

NP Shopping users order most items from the US. However, the popularity of other locations is also rapidly growing.

Thus, over 5 months the number of parcels from the UK has increased by almost 80%, and from Poland – more than 3 times.

NP Shopping is a service of Nova Poshta International that allows to make orders in the US and Europe’s online stores and collect your shipment from any convenient location in Ukraine.

How does it work?

The service works only for customers of new Kasta Black (subscription for free delivery for a year or for a month for regular customers). When registering a payment card in Kasta, the customer needs to take a selfie. After that, he or she can make an order with delivery to the nearest Kasta office.

When a customer comes to pick up their purchases at one of the Kasta branches, the system will recognize him or her by the face, and the operator will issue an order for fitting. After that, the customer will be able to choose the things that fit him/her and pick them up, giving the operator everything else. Payment will be charged automatically only for those products that are suitable for the customer. At the same time, no additional actions are necessary for the customer.

Why do I need Kasta ID?

According to Andriy Logvin, the founder and CEO of Kasta, identification through face recognition is one of the safest ones today. Using Kasta ID, the company wanted to move away from using a passport and other sensitive data to identify the buyer.

In addition, Kasta ID allows you to level the biggest problem in the fashion segment of e-commerce: the inability to see and touch the product before buying, and most importantly try it on. All of this is the main obstacle for clothes purchasing on the internet.

“This service will change the attitude of customers to online shopping and remove the fear of buying any brands and products via the internet without fear that they cannot be tried on or touched,” he added.

Payment by face – is the market ready?

According to Visa, 30% of young Ukrainians are already ready to pay for purchases using face identification.

“96% of Ukrainians from 18 to 23 years old are ready to use biometric data for making payments. Paying with fingerprint in the first place, the retina – in the second, the face – in the third place. 76% of Ukrainians believe that payment made with face is more reliable than a password or PIN-code,” said Svitlana Chirva, regional manager of Visa in Ukraine and Moldova, and acting as a regional manager in the Republic of Belarus.

Essentially, all regulations concerning the Ukrainian language online are laid out in article 27 of the draft law named “A state language in the sphere of user interfaces of computer programs and websites.” Regulations pertaining to online business are also contained in article 30 “A state language in the sphere of consumer services.”

Regulations contained in the draft law prescribe the following for software developers:

For website owners:

• Websites and pages in social networks of companies selling goods in Ukraine and registered in Ukraine must be in Ukrainian (Article 27, Part 6). There may be other versions, but the Ukrainian version should contain no less content and be loaded by default for Ukrainian citizens. The same applies to websites of state and municipal enterprises, as well as media registered in Ukraine.
• Websites of foreign companies selling goods in Ukraine shall have the Ukrainian version by default.
• Mobile applications of companies selling goods and services in Ukraine must have a Ukrainian version.
• Dedicated equipment (not common goods, but, for example, a medical device) does not have to have a Ukrainian version of the interface if there is an English version.
• According to the article 30, part 2, companies of all forms of ownership and PEs [Private entrepreneurs] providing services to consumers shall have such services and information about their products available in the Ukrainian language. This also applies to online stores, online directories. Information in Ukrainian may be duplicated in other languages. But, at the request of the client, they may receive the services in the language of their preference.
• E-commerce companies, registered in Ukraine (online stores) during the “distribution of electronic commercial communication” must provide all information in Ukrainian. According to the Law “On e-commerce” (Section III, Art. 10), “electronic commercial communication” means advertising messages with respect to goods, works, services. This can be an advertisement for a product in an SMS or mailing list, or information about discounts and gifts, about the cost of goods, etc.
• A computer program sold in Ukraine must have an interface in Ukrainian and/or in English and other official languages of the EU, according to the article 27, part 1 (it means 23 languages: Bulgarian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Irish, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish and Swedish).
• Software products with user interface installed on products that are sold in Ukraine must have a Ukrainian version that is not inferior in terms of its volume to versions in other languages.

Important: the regulation about the translation of sites and pages in social networks of companies comes into force one and a half year (18 months) after the entry into force of the draft law. Part 1 of the article 27, which prescribes the translation of software into Ukrainian (but also leaves the English version) is not indicated among those articles that have a long term of entry into force, and most likely will commence 2 months after the entry into force of the draft law. However, part 2, which describes the use of Ukrainian in applications installed on products (for example, on consoles, smartphones, etc.), also comes into force after 18 months. In order for the draft law to take effect, it must be signed by the president and promulgated.

It should be reminded that the draft law was passed in the first reading in October of the last year.

With regard to the development of computer programs:

• Programs that are sold in Ukraine will have to have a full-fledged user interface in the Ukrainian language and/or the official languages ​​of the EU (that is, in this case, if the program has an English-language interface, the Ukrainian version is optional).
• Programs with a user interface installed on products that are sold in Ukraine must have a version in Ukrainian. That is, for example, the sale of iPhones, for which the Ukrainian version is set by default, will not violate the law if it is passed. And, for example, the sale of PlayStation consoles without Ukrainian localization will be violating the law.
• Developers who write and sell programs for state authorities in Ukraine and for public utilities will also need to localize their product by adding the Ukrainian version. Authorities and public utilities will be prohibited from using programs without the Ukrainian version. Accordingly, they can only buy such software. However, it is allowed to use software without the Ukrainian version with an interface in one of the EU languages, “at the time of the creation of the Ukrainian interface.”

As for the work of online stores and other sites:

• Internet representations of legal entities and individual entrepreneurs who sell goods and services in Ukraine “are performed in the state language”, this applies to both websites and official pages on social networks. In addition to the version in Ukrainian, there may be other versions. However, the Ukrainian version should be loaded by default, and it should not have less content than versions in other languages.
• The same rule applies to sites and pages in social media, registered as media in Ukraine.
• Article 24 states that information for general awareness (such as ads or signs) should be submitted in Ukrainian, however, the provisions of this article do not apply to the Internet.
• Part of the new requirements for owners of online stores is also contained in Article 26 “State language in the sphere of customer service.” In particular, it says that companies of all forms of ownership (including online stores and online catalogs) serve customers and provide information in the Ukrainian language. However, at the request of the client it can be served in another language.
• Owners, operators and online stores’ sellers “in the case of distribution of a commercial electronic message” should provide information in Ukrainian, including the information on the subject matter of the contract. Translating it from the clerk to an understandable language, we are talking about advertising messages, newsletters, letters confirming the purchase, product cards, etc.

What could be the sanctions for violation of such rules?

The Ombudsman for the Protection of the State Language will monitor the implementation of the norms of the law, and the State Service for the Protection of Consumer Rights will apply sanctions against service companies that violate its norms. In the text of the draft law, there is section 8, Article 2.7, with a rule amending the Law “On Protection of Consumer Rights”, which requires the Central Administration to give instructions, including “On the temporary cessation of activities in the field of electronic commerce and the placement of electronic commercial messages.” That is, if, for example, the user complained about the lack of information about the product in the Ukrainian language, the State Service of Customers could hypothetically suspend the operation of such an online store. However, it is still unclear what will be the mechanism for the implementation of this norm.

Violation of the requirements of the draft law in terms of providing information about goods and services will result in a fine of shop officials in the amount of 300-400 non-taxable minimum incomes of citizens (this is UAH 5,100 – 6,800).

The Liga.net media asked lawyers how the rules on sanctions will be implemented. De-jure lawyer Volodymyr Danilin described several ways of circumventing the norms in the existing wording:

• The prescription will be issued to a specific business entity. On the Internet, sites with marketplaces for third parties are registeredquite often. A business entity will shift the responsibility to a third party, to whom, in fact, the state body must claim the termination of the violation.
• Large marketplaces can add a separate tab with a mirror site in the Ukrainian language. Or in accordance with Part 2 of Article 26 of the draft law there will be a format button added “Would you like all materials to be provided to you in another language? (language choices).” Thus, the marketplace will actually shift the responsibility for the content to the end user. And there is a rule about the choice of the user service language in the draft law.
• Until a provision on how a government agency will verify that the marketplace complies with the requirements of the language law will be elaborated, the rule will not actually work. It is impossible to demand to stop the violation if there is no procedure for fixing this violation.

“Parallel import” is the import of goods with a trademark applied on them without obtaining the obligatory consent of the right holder of the trademark. Such imports are carried out “in a parallel way”, regardless of the import of this product by the right holder, and without the permission of the right holder in Ukraine.

Parallel import is possible, provided that the goods have already been put into civilian circulation. From this point on, according to the principle of exhaustion of rights to a TM, the right holder loses his exclusive right to prohibit third parties from using the trademark. That is, the product circulates freely without any restrictions and the owner of the TM cannot influence the further resale of this product.

Why parallel import does not work in Ukraine

Ukrainian legislation does not clearly define at what point the holder’s rights expire: at the time of the first sale of goods in any country of the world, regardless of where such goods were placed on the market (international principle of exhaustion of rights to TM), or at the moment when the product was imported with the permission of the right holder in a particular country (national principle).

And here comes the possibility of a variable interpretation: the existing Customs Register of Intellectual Property Rights, which is designed to prevent the import of fakes, is used by some distributors and vendors to limit the import of original products. In particular, the situation is noticeable in the consumer market of electronics, when certain companies actually receive the exclusive right to sell branded products at competitive prices.

Customs officers are also willingly exploiting this loophole. Sometimes it’s ridiculous, for example, a couple of sneakers bought by a Ukrainian at Asos were delayed at customs to check whether the buyer was not engaged in illegal import.

Earlier, the founder of Hotline.ua Sergey Arabadzhi, wrote about this issue in his column for AIN.UA. The founder of “Rozetka”, Vladislav Chechetkin, also repeatedly spoke on the topic.

How to change it

The situation can be corrected by the bill №4614 “About making changes to the Customs Code of Ukraine for protection of the rights of intellectual property while transferring the goods through a customs control of Ukraine”, which establishes the international principle of exhaustion of rights to a trademark and allows parallel import of goods. It is precisely its adoption that is insisted on by the large retail chains “METRO Cash & Carry Ukraine”, “Auchan Ukraine Hypermarket”, “Silpo-Food”, “Novus Ukraine” and “BILLA Ukraine” in their appeal to Groysman.

Earlier in Ukraine, government tried to enact laws that, on the contrary, would aggravate the situation, because they offered to consolidate the national principle of exhaustion of rights to TM. One of these attempts was the bill №5419. However, with the joint efforts of the market players, these attempts were ceased.

What will be the result of the adoption of the bill №4614 for the market and final consumers?

In the opinion of Olivier Langlet, Director General of “METRO Cash & Carry Ukraine”, the adoption of the bill №4614 will improve the level of competition and ensure free trade of original goods in the customs territory of Ukraine.

“We are convinced that parallel import can become an effective competitive tool that will change the current state of affairs when Ukrainian consumers are forced to buy goods only from “certified”/direct distributors at inflated prices, who, in fact, monopolized the market. With a parallel import model, consumers will have access to lower prices,” he commented.

At the same time, the state budget will receive additional revenues in the form of paid duties and taxes. As entrepreneurs will no longer be forced to import goods “past” the border or transport them one by one with the help of private persons in order to avoid freezing of the lot at customs control.

As a result, healthy competition will be possible in the country, and this will stimulate legal entrepreneurial activity in the country, as noted in an appeal to Groysman.

How the introduction of parallel imports will affect e-commerce and consumer market of electronics?

The initiative is also positively evaluated by ecommerce players, online hardware stores and electronics.

“I consider this initiative timely and useful for the market. Indeed, today there is a situation where some “certified” distributors feel so comfortable that prices in Ukraine are tens of percent higher than in neighboring countries.”

“I believe that the adoption of this bill will have a positive effect on the competitive environment and lead to lower prices for many products. This is good news for final consumers, says Dmitry Latansky, co-founder of Repka.ua.,  I don’t really understand how the customs officers will be able to establish the counter-factability of a particular consignment of goods. Obviously, an employee who registers the import of goods into the country cannot be an expert in thousands of groups/brands/products and “distinguish the original product from the fake, but … we will solve the problems as they come.”

The initiative was commented on by Dmitry Pokotilo, managing partner of F.ua. He noted that parallel import can significantly reduce prices in the Internet segment compared to offline.

“The situation on the market for online trading of appliances is such that offline networks put pressure on manufacturers, and as a result, other independent sellers that want to sell official merchandise are under attack now – that is, we and our colleagues in the shop.”

“Equal prices on the store shelves and on the Internet-channel is the obvious pressure on offline stores, the products of major manufacturers on the Internet are no longer cheaper, it is impossible to form their pricing strategy. There cannot be such thing as the goods on the shelves being less expensive than on the Internet, it’s a different chain of costs for merchandising.”

Also, recently, they started practicing exclusives only on the net. The market of online sellers does not receive interesting models of smartphones, for example, the Honor brand can be bought only from offline sellers – we cannot just buy it, we sell it on the terms of the marketplace with our partners. And this is true for almost all well-known brands, when interesting models go exclusively for networks, and we have to sell the rest with inflated prices, because the Internet channel receives shipments of goods at much higher prices.

At the same time, online stores are strictly controlled and punished with fines for breaking prices, while retailing is almost impossible to control. Of course, considering such kind of trading, vendors can punish the seller. However, it will be possible to sell a TV made not in Russia, to capture sales on it and earn.”