Russia: Ecommerce on the rise with only 15% card usage

A new report by assurance, tax and advisory services firm PwC shows a rise in E-retail orders with a 26% a year growth rate.

The report also shows and considerably high 57% of all non-grocery retail purchases being placed online. The rise comes as a result of more Russian households being connected to the internet with an estimated 68% to be connected by 2017, roughly 38 million households.

Mcommerce and mobile usage is also on the rise with 41% of those asked responding yes to whether they have used their mobile device when purchasing products online throughout 2013. An estimated 61 million Russians are connected to the internet through their mobile phones, 43% of the populations. That number is expected to rise to 100 million by 2017.

One number not particularly seeing major growth is card usage. An average of 15% of online orders in Russia are paid with payment cards, leaving the remaining 85% to paid with Cash on Delivery (COD) or any of the plethora of alternative payment methods available in Russia.

According to Senior Vice President of Ecommerce Strategy for WoldPay, Ieuan Owen, the local Ewallet offerings are the preferred methods of payment in Russia. The most popular wallet services in Raussia are Yandex, QIWI and Webmoney and account for 25%-33% of all online orders.

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