Yandex plans to open an offline store for its smart devices

“Yandex» will open an offline showroom in Moscow for all the corporation’s products. The company is at the final stage of signing a lease agreement for 5,000 sq. m. m in the Chkalov shopping center on Zemlyanoy Val near the Kursky railway station. Three real estate consultants told Vedomosti about this. Mainly, the showroom will feature various gadgets that can be tested.

A Yandex representative declined to comment.

According to one of the consultants, the main task of the store is to introduce the consumer to the entire line of products, both physical and virtual. The implementation of the project will require significant investments from Yandex in order to impress the consumer, one of them believes: “Various formats, unusual visual solutions, possibly cafes, recreation areas and much more will probably be used.”

Typically, investments in the finishing of such projects require investments in the amount of 120,000 to 200,000 rubles. per sq. m depending on the condition of the premises, Vedomosti sources estimate. In this case, the rental rate will be less than 24,000 rubles. per sq. m per year, confirms Anna Mankova, senior director of the Commonwealth Partnership (CMWP) retail real estate department.

The store will probably become a flagship store, says Evgenia Khakberdieva, regional director of the retail real estate department at NF Group. Yandex now has only a small showroom in St. Petersburg, she adds. There is a museum and a Yandex store where you can buy goods with the company’s identity, as well as smart devices, but their area is small, and it is hardly possible to show complex scenarios on existing sites, confirms Fintech Lab accelerator analyst Sergei Vilyanov.

The range of Yandex products is quite large, says Content Review founder Sergei Polovnikov. These, according to him, are set-top boxes, televisions, smart speakers, sensors, smart light bulbs and sockets, accessories under the Commo brand (cases, cables, headphones, batteries, chargers, etc.). In addition to “smart” products under the Yandex brand, this area can also display your own private labels “Yandex.Market, for example, Tuvio, and partner brands on some exclusive terms, adds Cross Insights partner Boris Ovchinnikov. Taking into account the area, most likely, the showroom will be able to accommodate several separate corners of partner brands, agrees Mankova.

Entering the offline market in a large format is completely justified and will be of interest to the market, Mankova believes. “Online will not replace offline,” she explains. – The buyer has the opportunity to “touch” this or that product. Another question is what will be the conversion? There is a risk that after viewing the buyer will order this product for delivery to their home or delivery points.”

In any case, for Yandex, the offline format will provide the opportunity to demonstrate AI products, unmanned technologies, industrial robotization and consumer products, especially since the company is actively developing private labels, agrees General Director of Infoline Analytics Mikhail Burmistrov. The closest analogue of the project can be considered the Citylink showroom, which opened in St. Petersburg last year, and the concept of zones where a robot vacuum cleaner works, you can wash clothes, there are recreation areas, play areas, AI testing, etc. .d., he argues.

Lamoda has also been experimenting with offline formats for a long time, and recently it announced the launch of a network of sportswear and footwear stores under its brand, Ovchinnikov recalls.

“However, a smart home is not a completely obvious thing for the mass buyer,” says Vilyanov. – Even an advanced user sometimes has no idea what can be done using existing devices. Various combinations and scenarios need to be shown live.”

It is possible to deploy a similar showroom on a partner platform; Yandex already has such experiments, for example, in DiHouse Pro, says Villanov. But Yandex’s competitors, Sber and VK, are also present in such places, which Yandex is “not very pleased with,” explains the expert. “Therefore, even if users buy the equipment itself in other places (and this is most likely what will happen), the conversion from what they see will be undeniable,” he concludes.