PrivatBank rolls out offline ecommerce ordering, delivery network

According to Ukraine Digital News, these points, dubbed Magazin are equipped with computers which allow users to place orders at local and foreign ecommerce websites. The sites currently displayed are Comfy, Praktiker, 5ok, TopMall, Gold.ua, daily deal sites Pokupon and Groupon, as well as eBay, Amazon and Alibaba’s subsidiary Aliexpress.

Shoppers are assisted by employees of the bank to create orders, organize shipments from foreign stores, clear customs (if the sum of the order is in excess of EUR 150), or obtain credit for a purchase. According to the press service of PrivatBank, the goal of the project is to teach clients to buy online and pay for purchases with cards. According to their data, 55% of Ukrainians carry out purchases with cash and only 2% are not afraid to pay for items online, reports Retail Community, an online portal on the Ukrainian retail industry.

Purchases made with the help of the new service can be picked up at a number of ‘postamats’ (self-pickup points), a network which has also been developed by PrivatBank. These boxes, of various sizes, offer a place where a parcel can be delivered and stored until the client comes to pick it up. The service is being tested in Dnipropetrovsk (Dnepropetrovsk), a city in Eastern Ukraine, where eight stations have been set up. Within a month of operations, around 1,500 clients have received packages with the help of the service.

By the end of 2014, the bank plans to create 200 postamats within its branches. In order to receive the item, the client must submit identification with the help of the bank’s self-service terminals.

In 2013, the Ukrainian ecommerce market hit USD 2 billion, up 50% from the previous year, and involved 2.8 million consumers, according to the Ukrainian Association for Direct Marketing (UADM). 85% of orders of physical goods were paid for in cash upon delivery.