Russian-Chinese online marketplace Aliexpress Russia has fired 40% of its Russian employees due to the disruption to cross-border business caused by the events in Ukraine. The Nikkei reported Friday. A source close to Nikkei said that the downsizing affected the most the commercial arm, which was established in 2019 to sell on both the Russian and international market.
Over three quarters (75%) of the company’s revenue comes from cross-border sales. The pandemic has caused a slowdown in turnover as supply chains must adjust to new travel restrictions. According to the Vedomosti resource’s previous figures, the Nikkei data matches those of the Vedomosti resource. It reported that the reduction in staff began about a month ago. First of all, it affected employees in areas recognized as “irrelevant” – export and import of goods (own purchases).
Mikhail Burmistrov (CEO of Infoline-analytics), stated that all market players are now being forced to curb exports. Wildberries is the market leader in terms export sales. In 2022, Wildberries stopped working in several Western European countries. Ozon also reported in April on “project optimization”, which involved staff reductions.
Andrey Panteleev (commercial director at hh.ru), who spoke out about the 19% decrease in vacancies within the field of electronic commerce in March-April did not rule out the possibility that this sector will see even more vacancies.