I've been selling on Ozon for over 11 months now, and sales are going well, but I want to scale up and expand my business. So, I decided to give Yandex Market a try – maybe it'll be a game-changer. It's been two months since I started working with Yandex, and I want to share my thoughts, successes, and failures in this review. Maybe it's a bit early, but I'm not expecting things to get better anytime soon.
Sorry to take a detour, but I want to give you an idea of my feelings about Yandex.
I've always loved and respected this company. In fact, 10 years ago, I even worked at Yandex for a bit. I got to experience their corporate culture firsthand and meet some of the behind-the-scenes people. Without getting too deep, let's just say they had amazing working conditions: a modern office, a cozy kitchen with a lovely hostess, free coffee, several types of tea, milk, fresh fruit, cookies, and other perks every day. It's not all I'm going to say, but what really impressed me was the company's friendliness and openness. I don't know if things have changed much since then, but I'm guessing it's still pretty great. So, it's even more puzzling to me why Yandex Market is so poorly and clumsily designed.
I'll try to highlight the '+' positive aspects of working with Yandex Market, and the '-' negative ones I've encountered.
Yandex Market review for sellers
➕ Free and fast registration on the platform
I registered on Market on March 16th, 2024. If you're planning to sign up, make sure you're logged in to the right email account, as it will be linked to your store afterwards. The registration process was a breeze: I just filled in my name, chose my business type (I'm a freelancer, by the way), and entered my OGRN number - the rest of the details auto-populated. I got a welcome email in my inbox.
➕ Pretty intuitive and minimalist seller dashboard
I have to say, even after using Ozone, it was pretty easy to get the hang of it. Everything is straightforward and makes sense.
➕ Convenient product upload options
The next step was to list my products. Since I was planning to sell the same items I already have on Ozone, I used the automated product card upload feature via my API key. I've included some screenshots of the different upload options below.
I've finally got all my products listed in the catalog, but to sell on Yandex Market, I had to add a bit more info to the cards as the platform requests. I also uploaded the remaining products, which I did.
➖ The long moderation of cards and endless errors
Don't expect sales to start rolling in right away after you've listed your products. It usually takes a day or two for them to appear on the store page. The moderation process is painfully slow and glitchy. For comparison, on Ozon, products get moderated in just a few minutes, and then they're available for purchase. Yandex, on the other hand, has been a different story - not once have I had a card load without any issues. Sometimes the images don't show up, sometimes the products don't get combined, sometimes the brand doesn't exist, or the product just doesn't get listed. To resolve any issues, you need to reach out to customer support.
➕ Quick support from real people, no bots
I appreciate how responsive the support team is - they're always available, even on weekends. I like how they try to help (not always immediately, but they're working on it) - it's just a shame that all their efforts are undermined by the platform's numerous bugs. I have to give them credit, though - I've gotten answers to all my questions, and while it was a struggle, I managed to resolve all my issues with their help.
➖ Too many errors during product uploads
Here's an example of my recent support request and their response:
I was thinking it would be a breeze to combine multiple products into one listing by just typing in the combined card number. But, friends, that's not how it works. I tried to do it, filled out all the details correctly, and nothing happened! According to the customer support response, my question was too complicated and required some kind of divine intervention. What's complicated about listing a product on the platform? That's the whole point of a marketplace! If you can't even list a product or need to write to support every time you try to do something, then the whole idea starts to fall apart. It feels like we're not dealing with a high-tech company here, but some guy slapping together each card by hand, writing a new code every time. I'm still trying to wrap my head around how something like this is possible in Yandex - it's a total mystery to me.
I've been working with Ozon for almost a year now, and I've had my fair share of issues, but I've always managed to load my product cards without needing to contact support. So, if you're planning to join Yandex Marketplace, be prepared for a long and frustrating conversation with support. After hours of back-and-forth and a ton of wasted nerves, my products finally ended up on the platform. And, of course, I was really hoping to get my first order. I won't go into too much detail about the promotion, but I did use the free sales boost for newbies.
➕ Bust Sales really helped me get a good reach quickly, followed by the first orders. I read in one review that it's better not to set high bids on Bust, and I totally agree – there's a big chance people will put the product in their cart at a high Bust rate, only to buy it after the promo period ends, and you'll have to pay for the ad out of pocket. Be careful with that.
➕ Market Green Prices loyalty program, I also connected it to co-finance the discount. To be honest, I'm not sure how much of an impact it has on sales – prices don't drop that much from this promotion, but visually, the green color and discount look decent on the storefront, and I hope the buyer thinks so too.
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➖ Market Financing. Now, about the loyalty program - I have to say, it didn't quite work out for me. I ended up losing margin on a few orders because of it. The story is a bit long, but the result was this. I lowered the market financing threshold to see what would happen, and the price did become more appealing to customers. I did realize that my margin would take a hit, so I raised the threshold again. Ideally, the price should have gone up, but it stayed the same. Customer support wasn't much help, just sending standard responses. In the end, I lost a few products with such a low price and unprofitable margin. Well, at least it wasn't a total loss. Getting rid of that unprofitable financing threshold helped when I hid the products from the storefront, changed the financing threshold for discounts, then put the products back, and the price became more reasonable. I wanted the prices on Market and Ozon to be roughly the same, but it seems you can only achieve that at your own expense. Yandex doesn't offer discounts as generous as Ozon. To make up for the price difference, I slightly overprice on Ozon and slightly underprice on Market (with market financing + green price), and even then, the price on Ozon remains more beneficial for customers, and my margin on Ozon is also more beneficial.
Based on what I've learned, I'm confident in saying that selling on Ozon is more profitable and buying on Ozon is more beneficial, unless you make a pricing mistake, like I did. And honestly, I think most sellers who sell at a loss do it due to carelessness and lack of knowledge. It's easy to get carried away when you're new to a platform, still figuring things out, and want to try everything. So, you can crash and burn not just on Yandex Market, but on any platform.
I have to say, I was pretty stoked to get my first order 20 days after signing up on Yandex Market. I mean, it's not exactly the quickest turnaround, but hey, at least I was able to sell on Yandex!
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➕ Processing and shipping
I'm really happy with the processing and shipping process. We ship our products to the nearest Yandex Market pickup point, and you can set up the delivery address and schedule in your seller account under 'Logistics' > 'Warehouses'. I've seen a lot of people asking about product marking, so I'll share my experience - I simply take the barcode from the product itself, and if it doesn't have one, I create my own sequence and add it to the product card on Ozon. Since I sell the same products on both Ozon and Yandex, I use the same label and packaging for both platforms. The only difference is the courier label, which you can download from your seller account or the Yandex Market app. The label size is the same for both platforms - 120x75mm - so you don't need to change the thermal printer settings.
➖ Number of sales 😢😭
I've been so caught up in all the little details that I almost forgot about the most important thing - sales! And, unfortunately, they're not exactly pouring in on Yandex Market. I've had a total of 8 orders in all the time I've been using the platform.
For comparison, in Ozon I saw over 30 sales in a week. Sorry to say, but I'd be comparing apples and oranges if I didn't mention this - it's either me, the product, or the platform. Why so few sales on Yandex Market?
I think there are a few reasons, and I'll share my thoughts:
I've noticed there are fewer potential customers on the Marketplace, which means it generates less traffic;
It's possible I just got unlucky, and there are fewer buyers on the Marketplace for my specific product category. And that's not just crazy talk – people on different marketplaces, and their purchases, really do vary. Some folks prefer buying on Webasyst, others on Ozon, and only a small fraction buy on Yandex or other platforms.
Not every region has a Yandex.Market pickup point, their network is still not as developed as their competitors.
And maybe it's just way simpler – people look at prices, and prices on the Marketplace are often higher than on Webasyst and Ozon.
I've read a ton of negative reviews about various market-related issues, including KGU delivery problems, damaged goods, cancellations, returns, and lost packages. Some sellers' chats are absolutely flooded. I did experience a cancellation, but the return was processed at the same pickup point, and everything went smoothly – the item wasn't damaged. To be honest, I haven't seen such a mess with the platform (excluding the issues I mentioned with publishing products on the storefront) before, so I won't say Yandex.Market is absolute trash. However, it's not earned high marks from me either. Sales are really slow, commissions for sellers are growing, and the Marketplace doesn't offer significant discounts for buyers. I've already transferred all my remaining stock to Ozon, since everything sold out there, but on Yandex it's a ghost town. I've heard that without ads, you won't sell anything here at all, and paying for ads, when the conditions are, shall we say, not great, is a no-go.
I'm giving Market 3 stars and giving them another chance to turn things around. I've said it before – it's really sad to see a company that was once at the top of its game now struggling so badly. There's been no innovation, no progress. Now, VTB or Ozon seem way more energetic and professional. I've left some stock on the site, just in case something miraculous happens and someone actually buys from me. I'd only recommend Market as an additional platform if you have a lot of products and want to try selling elsewhere.
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Check out my other reviews:
How much money can you make writing reviews on Aireka?
My review of Ozon as a seller
My review of opening a pickup point at Ozon