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Wildberries targets becoming European e-commerce market leader, says CEO

Meanwhile, Wildberries is not drawing comparisons between itself and largest e-commerce platforms Amazon and Alibaba

MOSCOW, June 23. /TASS/. Wildberries plans to become the leader of the European e-commerce market, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Russia’s largest online retailer Tatyana Bakalchuk said in an interview with TASS for ''Top Business Officials' special project.

"We entered Europe in 2020, beginning from Poland, and in May we started sales in Slovakia. We will try to tussle with EU peers," she said, adding that "the market is highly competitive," and that the company targets "becoming number one player on the European e-commerce market."

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Meanwhile, Wildberries is not drawing comparisons between itself and largest e-commerce platforms Amazon and Alibaba, Bakalchuk noted. "Those are different companies. Each contributes to the development of the market," the founder of Russia’s biggest retailer emphasized.

The company is willing and ready to provide export support to small and medium-sized businesses "for fellow citizens to start doing worthy things themselves," she said. "The current period is difficult for entrepreneurs, for sure, and not only for them, though people are gradually adjusting to the situation, searching for and finding options. On the one hand, exchange rates have risen, but on the other hand, goods produced in Russia have become come competitive in Europe, for example. We see window for growth here, and people are more eager to start their own business," Bakalchuk explained.

"I’d like to live to see a major share of GDP being formed not by oil and gas, but due to development of small and mid-sized business, growth of real production, including consumer industry," she added.

Wildberries is present on the markets of seven countries, including Russia, Slovakia, Poland, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Armenia. Its turnover increased by 88% in 2019 to 223.5 bln rubles ($3.5 bln) compared with 2018. The company plans to enter the markets of another ten states in 2020. Wildberries has become Russia’s largest Internet store in terms of online sales volume for the fourth consecutive year, according to the data provided by Data Insight analytical agency.

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