Tatyana Bakalchuk.
A former English teacher and mother of four is the second woman in Russia to become a billionaire.
Tatyana Bakalchuk is the founder and CEO of $1.9 billion (2018 revenues) Wildberries, an e-commerce site that sells 15,000 brands and attracts 2 million daily visitors in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan. In 2018, the company processed 400,000 orders on average a day online, selling everything from clothing and cosmetics to household products and toys. Based on Forbes’ analysis, Wildberries is worth approximately $1 billion, which makes Bakalchuk, who the company says is its sole owner, a billionaire.
The only other Russian woman to ever become a billionaire is Elena Baturina, whose husband Yury Luzkhov was the powerful mayor of Moscow for years. After he was removed from his post in 2010, Baturina and their daughters left the country. Baturina sold most of her assets in Russia and began buying up hotels and other real estate in Europe and the U.S. She now lives in London and is worth $1.2 billion.
Bakalchuk, then 28, founded Wildberries in 2004 from her Moscow apartment while on maternity leave. At home caring for a one-month old, she began thinking a lot about how difficult it was for her—and other young mothers—to shop for clothes for themselves with a newborn at home. Bakalchuk decided to solve her problem by creating Wildberries. Her husband, Vladislav, left his job as an I.T. technician that year to join her. At first, she bought clothing in bulk from German e-commerce site Otto, took photos of the products and resold them online. She hired couriers to deliver items in Moscow and surrounding areas, or used the state postal service to ship to other regions in Russia. The relationship with Otto lasted four years before she pulled out and began working with brands directly.
It was a fortuitous time to start such a business in Russia, as there was little competition. Even today, the country is seen as one of the world’s last big frontiers for e-commerce. According to a September 2018 Morgan Stanley report, the Russian e-commerce market, valued at $18 billion, is the last major emerging market in the world with no dominant online retailer. Wildberrries, with an estimated 4.7% of Russia’s online sales, is third in a fragmented space behind Russian-owned Yandex Market, which has 10% market share, and Chinese retailer Alibaba, which commands 8.5% of online orders. The three companies sell many of the same, or similar, items, making it even more difficult to stand out.
Wildberries has a foothold in the fashion category, according to the Morgan Stanley report. But a clear winner in Russia’s e-commerce space has yet to be determined. Wildberries is mum about its future—but it won’t be complacent. “We can’t comment on our plans, [but] expanding is our strategy,” the company said.
