Russia, China Markets Continue e-Commerce, Social Expansion. Digital Sky Leads the Charge.
After having injected hundreds of millions of dollars in Facebook, Zynga, Groupon and not only, Russian investor Digital Sky Technologies is now betting its money on 360buy. Digital Sky Technologies sees potential in the expanding Chinese market, currently covering over 450 million internet users. The expected growth numbers circle around 27 percent a year, to $159.4 billion in 2015, from $48.8 billion in 2011.
“It’s still at a very fast growth stage. With more investment it is getting more competitive and we are going to see more development of new business models,” said Hong Kong-based JPMorgan analyst Dick Wei.
This is the third round of funding for DST, 360buy receiving the final sum of $1.5 billion, from the investment firm, with Tiger Fund and Wal-Mart participating as well, out of which $500 million comes from the former.
“With regard to the rapid development of 360buy and China’s e-commerce industry, this round of fundraising will have a very meaningful impact on that,” Liu Qiangdong, chief executive of 360buy, said in a statement.
It’s clear that the online retail segment is gaining traction, with certain niches pushing forward with the development of their market. Artspace, the online marketplace for contemporary art, has announced its closing of a $1.2 million round of financing. Artspace provides for a handful of stakeholders, including offering practical information to art lovers and acts as a social networking tool for curators, artists, galleries and cultural institutions and NGOs alike.
Global players that find themselves now in the middle of e-commerce economic development, such as China and Russia, are helping to dictate the trends. Considering that by 2012 90% of households in Russia will have been connected to the internet, e-commerce is gaining traction. OZON.ru, the largest online shopping website in Russia, has sold last year over 5.2 million copied of books, covering approximately 50% of the market, and the trend is present in other departments as well.
Other online retailers have noticed this and introduce new methods of payment to facilitate online acquisitions. BayRu announced a partnership with ePaySystem that resulted in offering clients making online purchases to use any legal payment method for international shopping and international delivery from US company BayRu LLC.
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