One of the largest Russian retailers Dixy Group will launch online grocery sales of its format Viktoria in 1H20, the CEO of the group Igor Pletnev told Vedomosti daily. Pletnev did not specify which is the marketplace the sales will be hosted on.

Currently largest e-commerce marketplaces include Wilderberries, Ozon, Beru of Yandex.Marker (JV of Yandex and Sberbank), AliExpress, Tmall, Goods developed by electronics retailer major M.Video-Eldorado, and others.

As reported by bne intelliNews, Russia’s largest retailer X5 Group also focuses on digital solutions and develops online sales of its supermarket format. O’kay retailer also runs an online supermarket, while Magnit, Lenta, and Metro are collaborating with express delivery services.

Dixy will team up with Sberbank’s delivery and logistics service SberLogistika in development of the delivery solutions, Pletnev said.

This year Dixy Group merged with liquor store chains Bristol and Red & White, with annual revenues of about RUB800bn ($12bn) and over 13,000 retail points of sale creating the third biggest retailer in Russia after only X5 Retail Group and Magnit.

The merger was followed with an appointment of Pletnev, an ex-development director and strategic director for Pyterochka supermarket format of country’s largest retailer X5 Group. Reportedly, Dixy and X5 have separately settled a non-compete clause in Pletnev’s contract with X5, allowing him to take the CEO position with one of the largest competitors.

Dixy delisted from Moscow Exchange in 2018 and bought out the largest minority shareholder Prosperity Capital Management (PCM) for RUB8.9bn for 20% stake. Previously the analysts saw Dixy's treatment of the minority shareholders as fair. The delisting was undertaken because of the unsatisfactory results in 2017.

The new post-merger holding is controlled by owners of Dixy, Bristol, and Red & White, namely Igor Kesaev (Forbes-estimated fortune of $3.2bn), Sergei Katsiev ($1.3bn), and Sergei Studennikov ($850mn). Kesaev and Katsiev hold 51% in DBKR and Studennikov the remaining 49%.