Latest update: 09.01.2025 | by Lili
What is Wildberries
Table of contents
- How does it work
- Financial data
- Availability
- Business model
- Wildberries and IP rights
- Online brand protection on Wildberries
Founded in 2004 and based in Moscow, Wildberries rose to fame as one of the largest E-Commerce platforms in Russia.
Wildberries was founded by Tatiana Bakalchuck, a teacher on maternity leave. Working out of Bakalchuck’s apartment, Wildberries began to sell clothes and quickly grew to a general marketplace popular across the country. (After her divorce in 2024, the Wildberries founder reverted back to using her maiden name, Tatiana Kim.)
How does it work
Today, Wildberries sells a variety of products ranging from fashion and footwear through electronics and sports gear to household items, toys and even automotive products.
Screenshot of the homepage of wildberries.ru
Just like on many other online marketplaces, customers on Wildberries can search for products or click on categories and browse listings. After placing a product in the shopping cart, customers can choose a payment method (debit card, payment by installments, or Wildberries own payment system) as well as delivery options (home deliveries or pick-up).
Financial data
Wildberries.ru gets an average of 246.63 million monthly visitors, over 88% of those from its native country Russia. Clothing, footwear and accessories are by far the most popular product categories on the platform, followed by home and garden goods.
The platform’s latest reported turnover (the first half of 2023) was 1.2 trillion rubles (currently $13.2 billion), almost doubling its numbers from the previous comparable period.
Availability
Wildberries operates in 15 countries, including Russia, Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Azerbaijan and Israel. From 2021 onwards, Wildberries opened its online marketplaces in several EU countries like France, Spain and Italy as well as in the US.
However, most likely due to the war in Ukraine, these dedicated sites don’t seem to be working at the time of writing this article, and either lead directly back to the Russian website or produce an error message. Currently, Wildberries is available in the eight countries mentioned above.
Screenshot of wildberries.eu. The text in Russian says: “Wildberries - fashionable online store of clothes, shoes and accessories is available in the following countries.” translated by globaleyez
To make up for its lost markets in Western countries, Wildberries seems to turn its eye to the East. The marketplace announced its intention to enter various markets in the East, including China, India, Singapore, Japan, Indonesia, Afghanistan and even North Korea.
+++ Update Winter 2025 +++
As the sanctions prevent Wildberries from expanding to Western markets, the company has decided to widen its scope of activities in Russia. After launching travel services in 2023, Wildberries announced a merger with advertising firm Russ Group with the ultimate goal of establishing a new rubel-based payment platform in 2024.
Although the merger was successfully completed in the fall of 2024, it sparked a great deal of conflict between co-founders Tatiana Kim and her ex-husband Vladislav Bakalchuk, who claims the merger was a hostile takeover and that his ex-wife is being manipulated. Bakalchuk attempted a break-in at Wildberries’ headquarters in Moscow, which led to the death of two security guards. It is reported that Bakalchuk is backed by Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, while Kim and Russ Group CEO Robert Mirzoyan seem to have ties to Russian president Vladimir Putin.
Business model
Like Amazon, Wildberries started out as an online retailer and was the sole seller on the platform for a while. Later on, just like its American counterpart, Wildberries began inviting third party sellers and now operates a mixed model where Wildberries can both be a seller or simply the platform providing other sellers with an opportunity to find customers.
Another important factor in the success of Wildberries is its availability both on- and offline. While customers can access the website and choose products, they can also visit a physical store or pick-up point in their vicinity to try the goods in real life before bringing it home.
Wildberries and IP rights
Due to the size of the marketplace and the presence of third party sellers, Wildberries is not immune to the problem presented by counterfeits and grey market products. Luckily, the marketplace doesn’t ignore the issue.
Wildberries has an IP protection policy and there’s an infringement notice form for right holders and their representatives available on its website. Brands and online brand protection experts like globaleyez are able to fill out this form and notify Wildberries of any infringing listings on its platform.
There’s just one tiny problem with this: what if nobody notices the infringement? Since many brands have pulled out of Russia due to the war in Ukraine, chances are that you’re not checking the Russian market daily for new opportunities.
Unfortunately, fraudsters most likely are.
With Russian consumers used to all kinds of branded products from Western countries, fraudsters may see the current situation as an opportunity to bring fake or grey market products to Wildberries. Should this be the case, the resulting IP infringements could cause your brand to lose a lot of its revenue and quite a bit of its reputation.
Luckily, there’s a way to defend yourself against this.
Online brand protection on Wildberries
Our marketplace monitoring service is aimed at discovering IP infringing listings on over 150 online marketplaces all over the world, including Wildberries. Our versatile software tools use both keyword and image-based searches to uncover connections between various types of infringing content and detect fraudsters abusing your IP rights.
A test purchase gives us valuable information about the seller and the origin of the product, as well as court-admissible evidence to assist you in an eventual court case against the fraudsters.
Finally, we can enforce your rights on Wildberries (and everywhere else on the internet) and demand the removal of the infringing content from the platform.
If you’re worried about your IP rights on Wildberries or any other place both off- and online, contact us and tell us how we can assist you.