2017 has gained its full pace and instead of predicting trends for the year, we can observe them clearly now. E-commerce industry has been developing rapidly over the last couple of years, and it continues its growth and expansion this year as well.
Global reports indicate that in 2016, global e-commerce income reached the mind-blowing number of $2 trillion. The industry growth equaled to 8.7% compared to 2015. Sounds promising, doesn’t it? That’s why numerous of e-commerce businesses all over the world get as innovative as they can, to earn loyalty of the most sophisticated customers and grab a piece of the sweet e-commerce pie.
In Ukraine, e-commerce gathers pace as anywhere else in the world. Over 2016, it’s grown 52% compared to 2015 and brought 38,5 billion UAH of revenue. E-commerce covers 3% of the whole retail market of Ukraine. This country can boast of successful businesses that begun their journey as startups several years ago, and have gradually turned into market leaders. Among them are such well-known names as Nova Poshta, OLX, Rozetka, Leboutique and Modna Kasta. If you are acquainted with the Ukrainian e-commerce market, you must have heard about those companies. Today, however, we will concentrate on the rising stars of the industry and tell you about the e-commerce startups of this country that work to their full potential and may turn into the next market leader very soon.
When speaking about the e-commerce startup scene in Ukraine, we’d like to mention DFS Smart Platform first. It’s a new Ukrainian e-commerce startup whose service is available for beta-testing now. Created by developers from PHP Academy, this platform connects to over a hundred online stores from USA and China. The project plans to expand to Europe in the nearest future. The service offers its users a unique opportunity to gather goods from a hundred of stores and collect them into one order, pay for all the things together and then just wait to receive the goods here in Ukraine. The major advantage of DFS Smart Platform over all of its competitors is that a user doesn’t need to copy and transfer the links for each item. All of the stores work inside of the service with a united shopping cart. DFS Smart Platform has great potential and aims at developing the international shipping service in Ukraine.
Fashion industry occupies a large market share of Ukrainian e-commerce. There are numerous successful online stores that gained trust and success over the last couple years, and the new ambitious startups strive for their place under the sun. Shopping Mall, an online store of Ukrainian brands, encouraged investments from a top-notch Ukrainian media company Burda Ukraine late in 2016. Shopping Mall is number one platform for Ukrainian fashion brands, and since Burda Ukraine is the leading publishing house in Ukraine, the scaling of the brand was not long in coming. Shopping Mall believes in the potential of Ukrainian fashion brands and plans to extend sales. Fashion industry in Ukraine is booming, a couple of hundreds of interesting new fashion brands emerged only over the last two years. Currently, Shopping Mall represents over a hundred of designers and brands from Ukraine, and 150 more are waiting to be connected to the platform.
Let’s talk about fashion a bit more. A cosy and laconic brand Ohhio was created in 2015 by a 28-year old Ukrainian entrepreneur Anna Marinenko. One day, she saw a large skein of merino wool and decided to try to knit something out of it with her hands instead of needles. Late in 2015, Anna launched a Kickstarter campaign and raised enough money to launch a business. Currently, Ohhio has grown to a team of twenty people who created numerous thick-knit minimalist designs. Ohhio has gained loyal customers extremely quickly, and even became the most popular brand on Etsy. Now its Facebook page alone has over 83k subscribers. The goods from the brand’s online store (scarves, wraps, yarn and knitting needles so far) are available for shipping to all over the world. The majority of purchases, however, are from the USA, Canada, Western Europe, Japan and Australia. Though Ohhio is not the only Ukrainian fashion brand that offers original knitwear, it is definitely the most successful and recognizable one.
eTachki, an online auction for selling used cars, can definitely be called one of the most succesful Ukrainian e-commerce startups as well. It was launched by co-founders of a fashion market leader modnaKasta. Right after the startup launch, TA Ventures invested as much as $1 million into it. The money will be spent on scaling the project in Ukraine. The service allows its users to sell a second-hand car in 30 minutes for the highest price. eTachki promises to transfer the money to the seller immediately, and takes upon itself all the supporting paperwork. The service supports and protects buyers as well, as prior to sales an eTachki expert examines the auto thoroughly. The main advantage of the service for its customers is the speed at which the vehicles are sold and the competitive difference of the price. So far, over 40k vehicle owners from all over the country visited the representative offices of eTachki. The service aims at facilitating the work of the car market and strives to make it more civilized for all of the interested sides.
Kwambio is an online platform for buying and selling different 3D models of various items a person can print out of ceramics or metal using a 3D-printer. A user can either print something on their own and sell it or make an order at the website of the service and get their order printed. There is a possibility to order designer items from the website, presented in homeware, accessories and art categories. The project was launched back in 2014, and it received $500k of investments from one of the companies in Odessa the same year. Later in 2014 the project got into the acceleration program of a famous accelerator from Boston – TechStars. Now Kwambio continues to work in the unexplored market of 3D printing and earn loyal customers with the help of the innovative solutions it offers. Kwambio iOS app lets it users purchase products and print them on demand 24/7. The delivery of the order takes about 3-4 weeks due to the production technology and on-demand manufacturing.
Wishround is a service of collective purchases that was launched by two ex-employees of Terrasoft. The capital of Ukraine is the where the headquarters of the company are located. In general, it’s oriented at purchasing goods from online stores. Wishround works as follows: a user creates a card with an item they want to receive as a gift from an online store, and their friends raise money for the purchase. With these money, a user can pay for their gift in the store where the Wishround card was created in the first place. In future, more payment options are to be introduced. The project works in Ukraine, Poland and Great Britain. As the founders say, its profit grows at a rate of minimum 20% every month. The startup was named among the finalists of SVOD Europe last year. In december, it took part in the Wayra Demo Day. It received $200k from a new Ukrainian venture fund Be Value early in 2015. In 2016, iForum named Wishround among the most successful and noteworthy startups of Ukraine.
Those were top e-commerce startups in Ukraine everyone needs to know about. All of them are innovative, hard-working and remarkable. All of them try to help their customers with their buying and selling needs. We’re excited about those young companies and look forward to telling you more about their success in the nearest future. Stay tuned for more news!
