Yandex.Market online marketplace, a joint venture between internet major Yandex and Russia's largest bank Sberbank, closed a strategic partnership deal with Chinese e-commerce major JD.com. 

As of June, Yandex.Market will be selling JD.com goods in Russia through its e-commerce platform, as reported by Interfax on May 29citing the Head of International Development Alex Vasilyev.

"Yandex.Market, an e-commerce venture between Yandex and Sberbank, is developing three key lines of business: i) a traditional comparison shopping engine; ii) online marketplace Beru, where shoppers can make purchases from multiple categories on one platform; and iii) Bringley, a cross-border e-commerce platform," BCS Global Markets reminds on May 29.

BCS welcomes the deal with JD.com and believes that it will strengthen Yandex.Market's cross-border ecommerce exposure. 

Currently, cross-border e-commerce is dominated by AliExpress. In China, JD.com is a major competitor to Alibaba's Tmall. AliExpress is is likely to become a joint venture between Alibaba, MegaFon, Mail.ru and Russian Direct Investment Fund in the near future, which is a major e-commerce conglomeration to compete with Yandex-Sberbank.

China accounts for about 90% of total cross-border shipments to Russia and about a half of Russia's cross-border e-commerce turnover. In 2018 online imports increased by 29% y/y to RUB 348bn ($5.4bn).

In the meantime Russia's largest online retailer Wildberries accused Yandex.Market in redirecting traffic to the marketplace on Yandex search engine. Wildberries claimed on May 29 that Yandex.Market appeared second or third in the search results on "Wildberries online shop" and similar inquiries.