Ulmart eliminates the “last mile” problem

The Russian online retailer Ulmart has increased its sales in the first half of 2014 by 31 per cent over the year-ago period, selling goods to the gross value of nearly USD 610 mio. The company expects sales for the year as a whole to be up by 33 per cent to USD 1.6 bn, with categories such as home furnishings and automotive parts experiencing particularly fast growth.One of the factors to which the company attributes this growth is that it has solved the so-called “last mile” problem by offering customers three options for receiving their goods: by direct delivery (around 15 per cent), delivery to one of 412 collection points in European Russia (around 22 per cent) or to one of 29 urban “fulfilment centres”, as the company calls them (around 63 per cent).St. Petersburg and north-west Russia now no longer account for the majority of sales. Last year Ulmart expanded to various regions of Russia, and they now have a 42 per cent share of sales. St. Petersburg and north-west Russia account for 36 per cent, and Moscow for 21 per cent.