Ozon, Russia's leading multi-category e-commerce platform, announces that it will launch a new logistics hub at St Petersburg's PNK Park Sofia Ring Road, owned by Marvel Logistika (a subsidiary of IT distributor Marvel), in August 2020. The hub will enable the Company to process more than 5.5 million goods in the St Petersburg region, as well as speed up deliveries across the Northwestern Federal District and create more than 2,500 jobs.
The new fulfilment centre for Ozon will be developed as a build-to-suit project by Marvel Logistika (a subsidiary of Marvel Distribution, one of the largest IT distributors in Russia and the CIS countries). The transaction was consulted by Knight Frank, which ranks among the top 5 largest rental and purchase transactions in the warehouse market of St Petersburg and the Leningrad Region. The first construction stage of the logistics hub is slated for completion in Q2 2020, while the installation of equipment and IT infrastructure will take another 4-5 months. This will lay the foundation for the first fulfilment centre in the northern capital, outfitted with the latest technological solutions developed in cooperation between foreign specialists and the Ozon IT team, and taking into account all the specifics of the Russian e-commerce market and international best practices.
The first construction stage will cover an area of 29 ths sqm, while the complex in total will span 79 ths sqm. At its full capacity, the new fulfilment centre will be able to process about 140,000 parcels daily. The Company currently operates two sorting centres in St Petersburg, where couriers take ready-for-delivery parcels and transfer them to delivery pick-up points or ]`ђ]deliver them directly to customers, while orders are mainly packed at the Company’s central hubs in Tver and the Moscow region. The launch of the new hub means that over 5.5 million goods will be stored just 5 km outside the Ring Road, which will improve last-mile logistics by enabling delivery directly from the hub to St. Petersburg and the Northwestern Federal district within 24 hours.
Stepan Gusamov, Ozon Director for Investment and Infrastructure Development, said:
“Ozon's customers in St Petersburg will receive their first orders from the new fulfilment centre in September. It will also accept merchandise from marketplace sellers: this will greatly simplify the transfer of goods to Ozon from our sellers in the Northwestern Federal District, and will provide a wider product range and a much faster delivery service to our customers. The launch of the new facility will create about 500 jobs at the hub as early as in 2020, and after reaching full capacity, the number of new jobs will exceed 2,500. This will include jobs at the logistics facility itself, as well as at small and medium-sized businesses across St Petersburg and the Leningrad Region, who will develop their businesses by selling goods, delivering orders and opening new delivery pick-up points.
The technical equipment of the new fulfilment centre matches that of Ozon’s flagship logistics centre in Tver and will include a tray sorter with a capacity of up to 140 thousand parcels per day. Control and management of all processes – from receiving and placing goods to sending parcels to the necessary sorting centres – will be carried out using the Company’s own Warehouse Management System, developed in Ozon's IT Lab.”