Core Insights - The article emphasizes that for most businesses looking to enter the Russian market, leveraging comprehensive e-commerce platforms like Wildberries and Ozon is a more practical and advantageous choice compared to building independent sites due to the unique market environment, infrastructure, and consumer habits in Russia. Comparison of E-commerce Models - **Trust and Traffic**: Comprehensive platforms have a significant advantage with millions to tens of millions of monthly active users, which helps resolve consumer trust issues. In contrast, independent sites must invest heavily to build brand recognition and attract traffic, facing challenges in a market with generally low trust levels [3]. - **Payment and Settlement**: Platforms offer various localized payment methods (e.g., cash on delivery) and handle complex cross-border settlement issues, providing a secure channel for sellers. Independent sellers face high risks as international payment channels (e.g., Visa, PayPal) have exited, making it extremely difficult for small sellers to establish secure and reliable ruble collection channels [4][5]. - **Logistics and Delivery**: Platforms have built extensive logistics networks (e.g., Ozon has thousands of pickup points), effectively addressing the "last mile" delivery challenge with next-day delivery in core cities. Independent sellers must manage local delivery service providers, which are limited in Russia, leading to high logistics costs and uncertain delivery times [6]. - **Operational Barriers and Costs**: Platforms lower the entry barriers by providing standardized store management, marketing tools, and logistics services, allowing sellers to focus on product selection and operations with relatively controllable startup costs. Independent sellers face high barriers, needing to handle website development, technical maintenance, multi-channel marketing, and customer service, requiring significant resources and expertise [7][8]. Recommendations for Product Selection and Operations - **Precise Product Selection**: The Russian market has a sustained demand for clothing, electronics, home goods, and auto parts. Chinese products like mobile phones, small appliances, and fast fashion clothing are highly competitive. Sellers should also monitor seasonal bestsellers and emerging categories like smart home devices and pet products [9]. - **Deep Localization**: Beyond translating product information into Russian, sellers should localize designs to fit local aesthetics, provide detailed product specifications (as Russian consumers value this), and ideally offer Russian-speaking customer service to significantly enhance conversion rates [10]. - **Marketing Timing**: Sellers should align marketing efforts with important Russian holidays and shopping seasons, such as New Year (the largest sales season), International Women's Day (a significant gift-giving occasion), and "Double Eleven," planning marketing activities in advance [10]. - **Compliance Management**: Russia has mandatory product certification requirements (e.g., EAC certification). After joining a platform, sellers must thoroughly understand platform rules and local regulations to ensure product qualifications are complete, avoiding losses due to compliance issues [10]. Policy Implications - The introduction of a visa-free policy between China and Russia is expected to facilitate cross-border e-commerce development, making business exchanges more convenient and reducing costs for Russian buyers visiting China for market exploration [12][15].