Sellers are changing marketplaces

The commission introduced by Wildberries six months ago for registering new sellers pushed some novice sellers away from working with the marketplace. As a result, the online company for the first time lost its leadership among online platforms in terms of the share of such sellers, losing first place to Ozon, Tinkoff Data found out. Wildberries does not agree with these data, linking the growth of sellers from competitors with their low base. The current configuration may change several more times, experts say, as competition intensifies in e-commerce.

Since the beginning of 2023, Wildberries lost its leading position in terms of the share of new sellers working on marketplaces for the first time, Tinkoff Data analysts calculated. In January of this year, the share of such sellers in Wildberries was 41% against 76% in August 2022. At the same time, Ozon increased from 16% to 47% over the same period. The remaining 12% of sellers prefer to start selling through AliExpress, Yandex Market, KazanExpress and SberMegaMarket.

The popularity of Wildberries among novice sellers began to decline after the introduction of a commission for their registration on the online platform, according to Tinkoff Data. Last September the marketplace introduced registration fee for new sellers in the amount of 10 thousand rubles, and later raised the amount to 30 thousand rubles.

Dmitry Ermolaev, CEO of the Moneyplace marketplace analytics service, adds that Wildberries is tightening conditions for novice sellers by increasing tariffs for product storage and logistics. Thus, he believes, the company makes it clear that it is more interesting to work mainly with large sellers.

Ozon told Kommersant that in the first nine months of 2022, the base of active marketplace sellers tripled year-on-year, which is explained by the launch of a number of support programs for new participants.

At the same time, Wildberries does not agree with analysts’ calculations and calls the information about the reduction in the number of new sellers “not corresponding to reality.” The company says that the growth of sellers on the marketplace is significantly ahead of other sites, and the growth of new sellers from competitors is explained by a low base.

However, since October 2022, Moneyplace has been observing a stagnation in the number of active sellers on Wildberries, and at the end of January 2023, they noted an outflow of sellers within 4%. According to the service’s calculations, in February, the number of sellers at Wildberries increased by 63%, while at Ozon it tripled.

Oborot.ru executive director Ivan Kurguzov notes that Ozon and Wildberries have different promotion strategies. “Wildberries is focused on the end consumer, creating a proper image, while Ozon and Yandex Market are promoting themselves as good service providers for sellers and stores,” he explains.

Despite the decline in the share of new sellers, Wildberries remains the most popular marketplace among entrepreneurs overall, although its share in the total number of sellers decreased by 4 percentage points (p.p.) in 2022, to 59%, while Ozon’s share increased by 6 p.p. .n, up to 29%, according to Tinkoff Data. “It should be noted that by the end of 2022, about 20% of sellers on marketplaces were doing business on several sites,” says Ilya Kretov, director of Tinkoff eCommerce.

President of the National Association of Distance Selling Alexander Ivanov emphasizes that competition between market participants has always been high, and the leader in the number of sellers “may change more than once.” Ivan Kurguzov also believes that other marketplaces today have a chance to increase the number of sellers due to the slowdown in the growth of their number in Wildberries. However, the expert points out, if competitors really continue to increase the number of new sellers, then Wildberries may change the overall development strategy.

Alina Savitskaya