Russia’s Biggest Web Retailer Was Founded by a Language Teacher on Maternity Leave
Wildberries has the most efficient logistics as well as a loyal customer base, but its rivals are close behind.
Workers prepare packages for shipping at the distribution center operated by Wildberries in Podolsk, Russia, on July 13, 2018.
Photographer: Andrey Rudakov/Bloomberg
At least five companies could be considered contestants in the race to rule online retailing in Russia, and most of them are backed by banks or billionaires. But the leading contender is run by a mother of four who founded her company in her Moscow apartment while on maternity leave from her job as an English teacher. “At first, I did everything myself, collecting the goods and taking them to customers on the other side of Moscow by subway or bus,” says Tatyana Bakalchuk, chief executive officer of Wildberries, which has 15,000 employees and last year booked sales of $1 billion, up 40 percent from 2016.
Bakalchuk, 42, conceived of Wildberries in 2004 as a place for people like her: moms on a budget with limited time for shopping. She ordered clothes in bulk from a German mail-order catalog, scanned the pictures, and posted them on her website. Her customers didn’t have to prepay, and she delivered to homes instead of making buyers pick up their purchases; the Russian postal service didn’t deliver parcels.