An Amazon Wannabe Rises on the Steppes

In a Google-dominated world, Yandex became Russia’s largest internet search engine by offering a better way to interpret the peculiarities of Slavic grammar. And two years before Uber made it to the country, Yandex started a ride-hailing service that’s become the market leader in Moscow. Now the company is targeting a business ruled in many places by another American behemoth, Amazon.com, with a renewed bet on e-commerce as expansion in its search business begins to slow. “Consumers like us, and stores want to list on our platform,” says Pavel Aleshin, the executive overseeing the company’s online shopping effort.

Yandex.Market, a separate site from the company’s search page, includes more than 20,000 merchants selling everything from dog food to roller skates. Its minimalist layout draws about 22 million visitors a month, according to researcher TNS. To attract business, Yandex has started arranging nationwide delivery for smaller e-tailers and helps them set up virtual call centers to deal with customers. At the same time, it’s changing the way it charges merchants. Until last year, Yandex.Market made most of its money from small click fees—as little as 3 rubles (4¢)—when search results directed customers to a site. Now it takes a commission of 1 percent on orders made via the marketplace. That’s far below the 6 percent to 20 percent Amazon charges, though Yandex says the price is aimed at attracting more merchants and will likely rise.