Ozon plans to increase the number of sellers and collection points in Uzbekistan, Belarus, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan

It is not known exactly how many messages will be sent, but the marketplace collects data, including prices for sending up to 5 million messages per month for each country.

Examples of specific messages with prices for opening a pick-up point are published in Kontur.Purchases’ materials. For example, for a pick-up point in Uzbekistan, Ozon promises 80 million soums (516 thousand rubles), in Belarus – up to 6,000 BYN (169 thousand rubles), in Armenia – up to 2.5 million drams (573 thousand rubles), in Kyrgyzstan – 412 thousand soms (426.8 thousand rubles). Entrepreneurs who decide to become sellers are promised up to 50 million buyers.

The target audience of the newsletter is people aged 25-54, the core audience is 25-44 years old, the geolocation in each country is large and small cities. It is possible that messages are sent in the national language.

The company did not comment on the tender, but clarified that sending SMS is only one of the promotional tools that will be used;

Ozon started developing its international business in 2020. Then the main destinations were China, Turkey, Kazakhstan, Belarus, India, Korea, Israel, Moldova and Thailand. In 2021, Ozon acquired a local marketplace and its own logistics infrastructure in Kazakhstan and Belarus. In 2022, Ozon also opened a representative office in Turkey. In 2024, the marketplace announced that it plans to develop its own logistics infrastructure in Uzbekistan, including warehouse complexes and delivery services. Ozone is also present in Armenia.

“I think Ozon has exhausted everything it could in Russia, there are only small towns left, so we need to scale up further. The locations are convenient, especially with such a large market. To develop in other countries, of course, it is necessary to attract sellers and partners; financial support will help in the initial stages,” Anastasia Alayeva, co-president of AUREK, told RB.RU.

According to AUREK co-president Tatyana Gudina, the chosen method of sending SMS is the right decision.

“People often open SMS messages with an unread status in front of their eyes. It is SMS that banks most often send about transfers or when replenishing personal accounts. In my opinion, this is quite logical and even thoughtful,” says Gudina.

In 2024, the growth of marketplace turnover in Russia began to slow down. According to Tochka Marketplaces, the average turnover of entrepreneurs trading on marketplaces increased by 43.4% in 2024 compared to 2023, and a year ago the same figure was 72.3%. According to My Warehouse, the turnover of seller-customers of the My Warehouse service in the first half of this year increased by 23% year-on-year, and last year by 31%.

Alexey Kozhevnikov, general director of FAS ANO “Digitalization and New Technologies”, told Kommersant that he expects an outflow of sellers from the markets in 2024-2025, as many of them cannot cope with working conditions on the sites, fines and frequent changes in tariffs.