The online retailer “Online-trade” has one owner

Businessman Sergey Poseukov became the sole owner of the online retailer Online Trade. According to SPARK-Interfax, at the end of January 2023, he bought out a 50% stake in this company from his partner, commercial director of the retailer Alexei Agranovsky. It was not possible to contact them. A request to the “Online Trade” remained unanswered.

The online retailer itself was founded in 1998 as a store of household and computer equipment and electronics. Now the site also sells goods for the home, construction and repair, sports, children’s goods and materials for creativity, dietary supplements and medicines. According to Data Insight, in 2021 Online Trade ranked 22nd in the list of the 100 largest Russian online stores. The company’s revenue in 2021 amounted to 25.4 billion rubles, net profit – 604 million rubles.

Mikhail Burmistrov, CEO of Infoline-analytics, estimates the transaction amount at $70 million (5.3 billion rubles at the exchange rate of the Central Bank). According to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, the share acquired by Poseukov is still pledged to Agranovsky. This means that the deal is structured so that the new owner can pay the money in stages, explains Burmistrov. In this case, he will not have to attract loans and increase the debt burden on the business.

Cross Insights partner Boris Ovchinnikov considers the consolidation of the entire company in one hands a positive factor for the online retailer. With one owner, decisions are made much faster, the expert explains. Both analysts note that Online Trade in 2022 slightly reduced its turnover to 25 billion rubles, according to Infoline Analytics.

On the one hand, the company has good competencies in the category of household appliances and electronics and has its own loyal audience, but objectively it loses to the largest Wildberries marketplaces. Ozon and “Yandex.Market,” says Burmistrov. But when compared with the dynamics of other large online electronics stores and multi-category online stores (which did not switch to the marketplace model), Online Trade achieved very good results in 2022. Many competitors (for example, “M Video”, “Eldorado”, “Citylink”), the number of orders decreased by tens of percent, says Ovchinnikov. While “Online Trade” had a slight increase in the number of orders – about 7%.