In the first phase of collaboration, Ozon parcels will be delivered to post offices: when placing an order, customers can choose to have their package delivered to one more than 3 thousand points throughout the country. This will enable every resident of Belarusto receive Ozon packages within walking distance of their home. Depending on the location of the post office, the average delivery time will be three days.
Orders are delivered from Ozon logistics centres in Russia to the Belpochta sorting centre, after which they are sent to post offices around the country. Delivery to a post office is free of charge, and the minimum order is about BYN 35. During the summer, Ozon also plans to add Belpochta’s courier service as a delivery option.
In the future, the parties plan to use Belpochta’s logistics to begin exporting goods from Belarusian sellers and manufacturers to Russia and other countries. In order to develop local entrepreneurship, Ozon intends to create a special shopfront this year that features products from Belarusian manufacturers and also to help sellers access the marketplace.
Ozon users from Belarus have access to the platform’s entire product range – a total of about 19 million SKUs in 20 categories (excluding oversized items). The items that residents of the Republic of Belarus ordered from Ozon most frequently last year were tea, coffee, groceries, children’s goods and books. The items that enjoyed the fastest-growing demand in 2020 were a variety of sporting goods, electronics, and products for construction and renovations. For example, sales of martial arts products increased 14-fold from 2019 in terms of the number of items sold, and sales of tablets increased almost sixfold. Ozon’s most active buyers are residents of the Minsk region, followed by residents of the Gomel and Vitebsk regions.
Andrei Vazhnik, Belpochta’s Deputy CEO for Commercial Activities”, said: “Belpochta’s transport and logistics system and its extensive network of postal facilities (3,000+) enable it to deliver orders to any point in Belarus, including to customers’ homes. We are pleased to connect one of the leading e-commerce platforms in Russia with Belarusian shoppers.
Yegor Isaev, Head of International Business Development at Ozon, commented: “Collaboration with Belpochta will help Ozon expand its business in the republic even faster and will take our customer service in Belarus to a qualitatively new level. Now customers can receive goods from Ozon in a short time from literally anywhere in the country, even in remote and sparsely populated areas. This is the first, but not the only, step that Ozon has taken this year to develop its logistics and the user experience in the republic. We want to become the most convenient online shopping platform in the country”.