Amid the Crisis in russian Entrepreneurship, Chinese Businesses Are Taking Over Online Commerce in russia

In 2025, russia’s online commerce market showed a worrying trend for local businesses: an increasing share of new companies are being launched by foreigners, primarily Chinese citizens. In 2025, every fifth new online business in russia was created by Chinese entrepreneurs. These are companies where the founder or CEO is a Chinese citizen.

All in all, the number of Chinese companies operating in the online commerce sector in russia increased 2.4 times in 2025. In parallel, the number of Chinese business registrations in the country increased by 86% compared to 2024. The largest share of new registrations was in e-commerce, accounting for 50.88% of all new Chinese companies. This is followed by wholesale (19.03%) and retail (9.24%) trade, while manufacturing accounts for only 3.42%.

This growth in Chinese business activity is taking place against the background of russian entrepreneurs leaving the marketplace. From February to December 2025, the number of active sellers on russian online platforms decreased by 6.9% – for the first time in the history of observations. Even more telling is the decline in interest in such business: the number of new sellers decreased by 17.8% over the year.

The reasons for the outflow of russian entrepreneurs are related to the rapid growth of costs. Marketplace commissions today can range from 25% to 40% of turnover, and with additional costs – up to 50–70% of revenue. Besides, since 2023, logistics for sellers has risen in price by 33–89%, while platform commissions have increased by another 58–63%. Under such circumstances, many small and medium-sized businesses are losing profitability and are forced to leave the market.

Against this background, foreign sellers, particularly Chinese ones, are actively filling the niche that is becoming vacant. Industry representatives point out that some of these companies use opaque or “gray” business practices, which allow them to earn by 20–30% higher margins compared to russian entrepreneurs.