New seller influx to Russia’s marketplaces fell 27% this summer, according to Russia’s Chamber of Commerce and Industry

The number of new sellers joining Russian online marketplaces fell 27% between June and August compared with the same period last year, according to the Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCI).

MoySklad, a service that tracks data from 50,000 companies, recorded an even steeper decline of 53%. The CCI estimated the total number of sellers on Russian platforms at 800,000 as of early September, while the Federal Tax Service put the figure at 850,000.

The marketplaces themselves do not disclose data on how many sellers joined over the summer. A representative of RWB, Wildberries’ parent company, told the Russian newspaper Izvestia that the platform’s number of sellers grew by 12% from January to August.

Ozon said 750,000 sellers currently work with the company and that it had seen no decline. Yandex Market said its number of sellers grew over the summer, particularly in the clothing, home goods, and children’s products categories.

Ukrainian drone attacks on warehouses affected about 400,000 sellers, according to the Association of Suppliers of Goods for Trade on Electronic Platforms. MoySklad representatives said the attacks may have discouraged new sellers from entering marketplaces while prompting existing ones to change their storage systems. The service saw new seller sign-ups jump 23% in August compared with July.

Experts interviewed by Izvestia acknowledged the attacks’ impact but attributed the slowdown in new sellers mainly to market saturation, rising competition and costs for sellers, and cooling consumer demand.

By the end of summer, the share of sellers on the Russian online retailer Wildberries working under the “fulfillment by seller” model had grown from 55.1% to 97.4%, the Russian business daily Kommersant reported. On Ozon, another major Russian e-commerce platform, the share of such sellers rose from 63.3% to 73.1% over the same period. Sellers are also seeking new ways of doing business: Yandex KIT recorded a 59% increase in new independent online stores with sales in August compared with July.

The e-commerce market itself continues to grow, according to the Association of Internet Trading Companies. Russia’s online retail turnover reached 8.4 trillion rubles between January and July, up 18.4% from a year earlier. The association expects growth of another 20% by the end of 2026, bringing the total to 15.8 trillion rubles.