Online Business: Strategies for Entrepreneurs' Adaptation to Russian Marketplaces

Since the early 2010s, there has been a rapid growth of platform-based companies, including marketplaces. They offer entrepreneurs: low initial costs; access to unique consumers; information support; marketplace-related services (payments, escrow) and other support services. By the end of 2021, thanks to the pandemic and low barriers to starting a business, there was a record growth of new sellers in the Russian marketplace market, which was followed two years later by a sharp decline due to the departure of some sellers from the marketplace. More and more often, sellers complain en masse about arbitrary behaviour on the part of marketplaces: unauthorised charging of commissions and unjustified fines by the trading platform, imposition of additional paid services, and compulsion to participate in discount promotions. But the growing market turnover from year to year proves that there are sellers who have managed to adapt to the conditions of Russian marketplaces. Based on the data from 15 semi-structured interviews with Wildberries and Ozon sellers, the barriers and difficulties of entrepreneurial activity were identified, and strategies for their adaptation to the conditions of Russian marketplaces were defined.