Most offline sellers in Russia have announced plans to go online.

Two thirds (65%) of sellers believe that in the future half of sales will take place online. This is evidenced by the results of a survey conducted by the ORO and Avito Marketing Research Agency of more than 500 sellers, mostly trading offline.

It turned out that 29% of those who still have not used online channels to sell their goods and services are going to do so in the future. At the same time, half of the respondents named Avito as the first online platform they consider for this purpose. 43% are also planning to switch to Ozon and Wildberries.

Alexey Li, Commercial Director of Avito Goods, noted that there are already about 1 million active SME users on the platform.

Every second person among those who are already partially online plans to expand. 48% want to additionally connect sales through Ozon, almost the same number (46%) — through Avito. Another 36% want to launch their own website, and 33% want to start selling on Wildberries.

At the same time, 43% want to go online in order to expand the geography of sales, and 23% seek to reduce the cost of offline outlets - rental of premises and sales consultants.

"Despite the rapid development of e-commerce, many sellers continue to trade offline. A quarter of them do this for the convenience of customers: those who want to look at the product live before buying (26% of sellers noted this customer need) or consult and select the product with a specialist (25%). Moreover, sellers who have experience in both offline and online sales were more likely to note the importance of consulting in the store (35% versus 19% of those who sell only offline)," Avito said.

Also, almost every fifth seller (19%) believes that there is too much competition on the Internet, which is why online channels often have to lower prices. 15% are afraid that the product will be damaged during delivery. Another 16% say that they do not have time to develop sales on the Internet, 15% — that there are no employees who could professionally engage in sales on the Internet.