The Federal Antimonopoly Service announced the approval of the application of the Cypriot offshore Ozon Holdings to acquire the rights to determine the economic activities of Zapato.ru. Ozon Holding owns the Ozon.ru online supermarket, and Zapato.ru owns the Sapato.ru online shoe store.
Ozon.ru electronic supermarket is considering the possibility of buying various online stores for investments received last year in the amount of $ 100 million. In particular, a deal is being discussed to acquire the Sapato.ru store, which should help Ozon.ru strengthen its position in the online shoe sales segment .
Ozon.ru explained that the company is currently considering the possibility of acquiring online stores, refusing to discuss the details. The representative of the founder of Sapato.ru - Fast Line Ventures (FLV) fund - Lada Shcherbakova, says that negotiations are ongoing with Ozon.ru, but there are no concrete solutions yet. “All the projects of our fund are constantly in search of new investments,” she added.
Sapato.ru was established in 2010. Last year, the store raised $ 12 million from Intel Capital funds and the founding funds of FLV: Direct Group, eVenture Capital Partners and Kinnevik. Ozon.ru was created in 1998 for the sale of books and videos. Subsequently, the store significantly expanded its range with music, software, electronics, gifts and products for the family, trips, etc. A year ago, the store also began to sell shoes.
Last year, Ozon.ru attracted $ 100 million of investments from u-Net funds of Leonid Boguslavsky, Index Ventures, Alpha Associates and Japanese online retailer Rakuten. Obviously, with these funds Ozon.ru intends to make upcoming purchases.
Logical calls the intention of Ozon.ru to diversify Internet expert Mikhail Yatkovsky. “Sales of books and music are declining due to the development of digital content, while the direction of sales of clothes and shoes is quite marginal,” the expert notes. “But Ozon.ru had to rebuild its logistics system for a long time, as a result of which the store started working in this segment rather late.”
According to Yatkovsky, the leaders in the segment of online sales of clothing and shoes are Boutique.ru, Kupivip.ru stores and the online version of the Otto catalog. Ozon.ru itself, according to expert estimates, occupies only a few percent of this market, cnews.ru reports.
The Federal Antimonopoly Service announced the approval of the application of the Cyprus offshore Ozon Holdings for the acquisition of rights to determine the business activities of the company ...