Russian e-commerce in 2024–2026 is not undergoing another incremental upgrade — it is being structurally rearranged. The playbooks that worked three to five years ago are losing their effectiveness. What is changing is not just the toolkit. The logic of competition itself is changing.
Platform Economics and the New Rules
The formalisation of marketplace regulation in Russia crystallised what the market already felt: a marketplace is not simply a sales channel, it is regulated infrastructure. The regulatory shift altered the balance of power between platforms and sellers. Platforms gained a clearer legal framework and, with it, legitimate grounds to set terms of engagement that would have read as market abuse just three years ago.
For a marketer, this means one thing: operating on a marketplace without understanding its algorithms, ranking mechanics, and internal advertising tools means competing blind. Platform expertise has become a mandatory marketing competency, not an optional layer.
From the Traffic Race to the Retention Battle
Customer acquisition costs in e-commerce are rising faster than inflation. Key channels are overheated: CPM in performance networks has climbed, algorithms are more complex, and audiences are more sceptical. In this environment, continuing to invest exclusively in acquisition is a strategy with diminishing returns.
The shift I observed across multiple projects — at AliExpress, at Uzum — is consistent: companies that won through aggressive acquisition in 2020–2022 are now losing to those that built systematic retention. Retention is not a loyalty programme with points. It is the architecture of user experience that makes a repeat purchase the more natural choice than switching to a competitor.
One metric worth tracking: the share of revenue from existing customers as a percentage of total revenue. In mature e-commerce businesses, this should run at 60–70%. Below that, the business depends on perpetual acquisition and is exposed to CAC inflation.
Marketplace Platforms Gain Power, Sellers Lose Autonomy
Market consolidation around a handful of major platforms creates a structural problem for sellers: the larger the share of GMV flowing through a marketplace, the higher the dependence on that platform's terms. Commissions rise, content requirements tighten, and ranking algorithms change without notice.
In this context, marketing becomes a tool for reducing platform dependency. Brands that invest in direct communication channels — owned apps, email and push databases, social communities — create a buffer against algorithmic shifts. Those who fully delegated the customer relationship to the platform are left without a fallback.
Platform Loyalty vs. Brand Loyalty
One of the most important strategic questions for an e-commerce marketer today: who does your buyer's loyalty belong to — you or the platform? If a customer arrived via a marketplace, transacted, and left — you captured a transaction, not a customer. Their next purchase is determined by the ranking algorithm and price, not by attachment to your brand.
Shifting customers from platform loyalty to brand loyalty is hardest in categories with high price sensitivity and weak product differentiation — in some cases, it is effectively impossible. But in categories with distinct functional or emotional advantages, it is both possible and necessary. This is precisely where brand investment stops being an "image expense" and becomes a margin protection mechanism.
Shrinking Basket Size and the Importance of Everyday Convenience
Real consumer purchasing power is under pressure. Average basket sizes in several categories are declining — not because people are buying less, but because buyers are optimising. In this environment, the platforms and brands that win are those embedded in an everyday scenario rather than requiring a deliberate shopping trip.
"Everyday convenience" is not just fast delivery. It is price predictability, frictionless ordering, service reliability, and assortment relevance for specific use contexts. Marketing that speaks to convenience through concrete scenarios — rather than abstract benefits — wins the competition for a constrained consumer budget.
From Omnichannel Presence to Channel Efficiency
A few years ago, marketers were queuing to claim omnichannel credentials. Today, the priority has shifted: not presence everywhere, but deep mastery of a few key channels with clear returns. Budgets have contracted — there is simply no money to maintain ten channels at "medium power."
Simultaneously, audience attitudes toward content are shifting. Fatigue with AI-generated content is becoming a real phenomenon: users are increasingly able to identify synthetic text and imagery, and trust it less. Against this backdrop, UGC (user-generated content) and genuine buyer reviews are showing higher engagement rates. The paradox: at the very moment AI made content production cheap, the value of "real" content increased.
AI Is Reshaping Brand Identity
The use of AI in marketing has long surpassed automating repetitive tasks. Generative models are now involved in creating visual identities, writing copy, and personalising communications. This creates a new problem: when everyone uses the same tools at scale, brands start to sound and look alike.
Differentiation through a distinctive visual and verbal language becomes increasingly laborious — and therefore increasingly valuable. Brands that invest in an original voice and aesthetic (an editorial sensibility, to use the word deliberately) gain an advantage in a world where average content is produced in seconds.
Fintech Services and BNPL as a Marketing Instrument
Instalment payments and BNPL (buy now, pay later) have long ceased to be purely financial products. In a marketer's hands, they are conversion tools — particularly in high-ticket categories and during periods of constrained purchasing power. At Uzum, integrating fintech products into marketing communications meaningfully extended accessibility for buyers for whom the full price was a barrier.
The key principle: BNPL works as a marketing instrument only when it is embedded naturally in the customer journey, not offered as an emergency option at the final checkout step. The buyer should experience instalment payment as a convenient format, not as a last resort.
Gamification of Consumption
Game industry mechanics — streaks, achievements, progress bars, time-limited challenges — are firmly established in e-commerce. They work on retention, purchase frequency, and platform engagement. But gamification has a saturation threshold: when every platform uses the same mechanics, they stop feeling like a game and start feeling like noise.
Gamification that stays effective is gamification organically integrated into a real user scenario, offering a meaningful rather than symbolic reward. "Complete 5 levels and get a ¥50 coupon" is not motivation. An accumulative programme that genuinely changes the economics of purchasing for a loyal user is a different story entirely.
The New Logic of Competition
E-commerce marketing in 2024–2026 is a discipline where the winners are not the loudest, but the most precise. Precise in working with data, precise in understanding the economics of each channel, precise in building relationships with buyers beyond the transaction. Algorithms will handle "showing the ad." The marketer's job is to set the right parameters and produce content that buyers choose to trust.