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Trade: e-commerce market value to exceed EUR 3.5 bln this year
The value of the electronic commerce will exceed EUR 3.5 billion this year, according to retailers estimates, an significant increase from last’s year EUR 2.8 billion. The growth will be supported by the development of platforms that groups several stores into an online shop, called online marketplace.
The e-commerce online store in Romania, doraly.ro, has invested in all the facilities needed to accommodate 550 importers, manufacturers and distributors, tenants of Doraly Expo Market premises in Afumati. Launched at the end of April this year, the doraly.ro platform already hosts 126 merchants, selling over 16,000 electrical and lighting products, home and garden products, DIY, tools, tools and decorations. The range of articles is expanding every day, and the platform will include over 100,000 products by the end of the year.
“We’ve adapted doraly.ro to the specific needs of tenants in Doraly spaces so that every trader has a chance to increase sales through this new digital channel without making any effort. We provide them, beyond the on-line functional platform, our own customer support service, a logistics structure that facilitates a single shipment, even when the customer orders from multiple merchants simultaneously and storage spaces to create buffers, which enable them to streamline the sale process,” says Alexandru Rusu, Doraly CEO.
The total turnover of companies operating in the Dorota Expo Market and preparing to sell their products on the internet amounts to more than EUR 780 million, up 8.5 percent over the previous year.
The growth was mainly driven by the opening of several cash & carry stores, such as the X3 pavilion, specializing in food and beverages. In 2017, Doraly’s cash & carry segment saw a 38 percent increase in turnover, significantly more important than the overall average of the trading floor. Since the beginning of last year, the total area of this complex has increased by 132 percent to 25,000 square meters.
The 31 Doraly pavilions are visited each year by over 3 million customers, individuals and resellers. However, the company’s officials expect an increase in the number of visitors due to the repositioning of the commercial park to cash & carry and retail. With the opening of the X3 pavilion, with a total area of 4,200 square meters, the total rental area reached 84,000 square meters. By 2020, a total investment of approximately EUR 12 million is projected, aimed at expanding the commercial area by another 12,000 square meters and modernizing the existing pavilions.