Online Shopping In Russia: Scoring the Best Deals on Everything

Food and Groceries

• Like Montagues and Capulets, Delivery Club and Yandex.Eda are two competing houses on the Russian food delivery market. These services are a medium between the city's many restaurants and hungry customers and provide delivery from the former to the latter, significantly reducing the time of their interaction. Both platforms offer a wide delivery area which covers not only St. Petersburg, but also the Leningrad Oblast. Moreover, the apps are easy to use – to see available options around you, you just need to put in your address. 
• For those who prefer buying groceries without wandering around a store with a shopping cart during rush hour, Samokat, Yandex.Lavka, and iGooods offer food delivery directly to your door. Some of them boast high-speed delivery while others promise to preserve the original store prices, but the idea is the same – just put the items in the basket and press “order”. To experience homemade restaurant-like food, you can order make-your-meal packages from catalog of Samokat and Yandex.Lavka or try meal delivery services such as Korzina na dom and Elementaree, where groceries are delivered together with recipes and you get to be the chef. 
• For more useful tips and options regarding food delivery in St. Petersburg read our detailed compilation.

Clothes

• If the only thing that stops you from buying clothes online is the fear of getting a wrong size item with further epic returns required, it’s high time to change your mind. Russian online store Lamoda offers multiple brands of clothes, shoes, and accessories and is well-known for its flexible shopping policy. At a delivery point or upon the courier’s arrival, the company allows you to try on your purchases before paying for the order, so you can buy only what suits you! One more nice feature of the website – there’s a section of fashion stylists’ outfits, which are available for purchase and free to draw inspiration from.
• The British brand ASOS was primarily designed for young adults, but later expanded to a world-famous online store. From basic t-shirts and vegan cosmetics to nifty rings and unique activewear – you will definitely find what you need among the variety of goods presented. Good news: ASOS is constantly improving its return policy and offers a 10% discount for students (ITMO students can take advantage of it via ISU corporate email). Bad news: as it’s an international online store which delivers from abroad, meaning you can only purchase goods worth up to 200 euros without being taxed. Also mind the standard shipping time - it can take two or three weeks.

Miscellaneous

• Popular and reliable, Ozon is the largest Russian online store where you can buy literally everything: clothes, shoes, electronics, cosmetics, books, music, and lots more. Luckily for us, Ozon delivery points have recently captured St. Petersburg – I bet there’s at least one a five minutes walking distance from your apartment. The delivery period usually does not exceed five days. Personal precaution – if you find yourself visiting this website more than twice a day, you’re running a risk of becoming a shopaholic.

• Like Ozon, Wildberries is a Russian website where you can find anything from Nintendo games to callus removers. You may think of the two sites as identical twins, but on closer examination, differences are revealed. If your order’s total is more than 3,000 rubles, Wildberries provides free delivery (3,500 rubles for Ozon) and generally lower prices to some goods – due to reasonable commission rates for sellers.

• Yandex.Market is a brand new ecosystem which combines the functions of a marketplace and a service for price comparison. This means that buyers get the opportunity not only to search for the cheapest item with the best reviews, but also to purchase it directly in the app.

Interested in something specific? Explore a variety of online stores with our article.

Second-hand 

• The classified advertisements website Avito is extremely popular in Russia. Figures speak for themselves - there’re almost six billion ads on the website. Having made a deal here, one can become the owner of a pretty house plant or even a pretty house… You can also try your hand at sales – and finally get rid of old furniture or unwanted gifts. Be careful, delivery terms are discussed between the parties personally. To avoid payment frauds, we’d recommend not transferring money until you receive the goods intact.

• The Youla platform is maybe more modest in the amount of offered goods than Avito, but is rather unique considering the fact that here people are giving away stuff for free. Besides all, there’s services exchange available – for example, you can call a plumber or hire a hairdresser. Don’t miss your chance to haggle with the seller, and maybe you'll manage to get a reasonable price cut.

Still searching for bargains? Here are a few more of the places where one man’s junk is another man’s treasure.