Clothes on wheels – Newspaper Kommersant No. 216 (7417) dated 11/22/2022

The Samokat express delivery service, trying to get out of the unprofitable zone, decided to include women’s clothing and electronics in its assortment. However, market participants doubt that the company will be able to improve financial stability through new segments. The delivery of clothing and electronics is associated with a large share of the return of goods, and in general, since the beginning of autumn, the online shopping market has begun to sag.

As Kommersant found out in the Samokat profile on the HeadHunter employee search portal, the service is looking for managers who will develop the delivery of women’s clothing, household appliances and electronics. The company is also recruiting specialists to establish sales of goods under its own brand and develop direct imports. Scooter did not provide a comment.

Recently, in order to increase delivery volumes, Samokat has been actively increasing the range of non-food products – for example, cosmetics, a Kommersant source in the retail market knows. The development of its own direct import service could be required for stable supplies, suggests Mikhail Burmistrov, CEO of Infoline-Analytics.

Samokat remains unprofitable today, so the service’s plans to increase the categories of goods may be associated with a desire to get out of this situation, says Andrey Chursin, CEO of E-tiketka. In April 2022, Vedomosti announced the suspension of the service in 15 Russian cities. However, in mid-November, a Samokat representative told Shopper’s about a return to regional expansion: the service was launched in Stavropol, and it is also planned to launch in Krasnoyarsk and Astrakhan.

According to a Kommersant source in the market, Samokat may begin to build up partnerships, including in the segment of non-food products, with Sber services – for example, with SberMegaMarket. So, in November, the service and marketplace launched “on-click” delivery in a number of Russian cities, when the order arrives at the Samokata dark store closest to the user. Mikhail Burmistrov also believes that for the development of new product groups, Samokat can use partnerships with SberMegaMarket and Sberlogistika, which manages a network of pick-up points. Such cooperation would also be beneficial for SberMegaMarket, whose clothing category lags far behind other marketplaces, the expert believes.

Yandex Lavka told Kommersant that they were also testing delivery of parcels “on click”, for example, with clothes and equipment from Yandex Market. When choosing this delivery method, every fifth user buys more goods in Yandex Lavka, says a service representative.

However, Andrey Chursin doubts the need of consumers for express delivery of clothes. According to him, the share of returns in this category exceeds 25%, and clothes must also be delivered with the possibility of trying them on. This means, the expert believes, that the courier of Scooter or another service will be severely limited in delivery.

In general, the online shopping market is going through a difficult period. The Infoline agency has reduced its forecast for the online shopping market for only food and essential goods in 2022 from 800 billion rubles. up to 600-620 billion rubles. due to the desire of consumers to save in a crisis, the mobilization and emigration of part of the solvent population.

Alina Savitskaya