Sberbank and Yandex have announced a joint e-commerce platform (marketplace) “Beru” (“I’ll take that!”), due to be launched in autumn 2018.

TASS reports that the service will be available on beru.ru and Android, iOS apps. As of the moment, the beta version is accessible for anyone interested in testing it, as well as for Sberbank and Yandex staff in all regions of Russia.

It is worth reminding that last August Sberbank and Yandex signed an agreement on establishement of a joint enterprise on the foundation of Yandex.Market, in the scope of which both parties planned to develop an e-commerce ecosystem. Under the contract, Sberbank would invest RUB 30 billion in Yandex.Market.

The deal was completed on 27 April 2018. The final estimate of the joint enterprise made RUB 60bn, and Sberbank CEO Herman Gref commented: “We want to create a “Russian Amazon” on the basis of Yandex.Market and I hope we’ll be able to pull it off.”

Yandex.Market expects the turnover of “Beru” service to reach RUB 500 billion within five years.

“We hope to become a strong player and we’ll do our best to develop the e-commerce market in Russia, which still holds just a small share in retail turnover, especially compared with the share of e-commerce in advanced countries,” said the company.

The marketplace will offer about 25 000 commodity items in various categories (such as electronics, household appliances, homeware, children’s products) during the testing period. The founders intend to gradually expand the range of products and raise it to a million items in the next few years.

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