Imagine you have spent years building a product on Ozon, and then you see Ozon selling the same product. Should you keep going? This article looks at why Ozon enters categories, what it means for sellers, and what to do about it.
Why Ozon enters mass categories
In recent years Ozon has been actively entering new categories under its own retail model. Many sellers notice that competition suddenly gets much harder. Here is why it happens and what to do if you find yourself in that situation.
Ozon mostly goes into mass categories: household chemicals, home goods, groceries, pet supplies, cosmetics, electronics, accessories, children's goods, stationery and seasonal products. The list is long.
Three reasons this is a problem
1. Price
Ozon has far more room to work with minimal margin. Its goal is not so much to earn on every item sold as to grow the platform's overall turnover, keep buyers on Ozon and increase their loyalty.
On top of that, many buyers subconsciously see Ozon as a more reliable seller than some unknown merchant. Even with an identical product at an identical price, the buyer tends to prefer Ozon as the seller.
2. Trust
That perception of reliability is a real advantage. It works in the background on every product card where Ozon competes with an independent seller.
3. Visibility
Sellers who face competition from Ozon in their category often report that Ozon's own products get very strong visibility in search and recommendations. Even if the platform officially states that ranking principles are the same for everyone, these observations come up regularly.
Many entrepreneurs complain about it. A coincidence? Unlikely.
It is not a death sentence
But the most important part is this: Ozon appearing in your category is not the end of the story. Here is a step-by-step plan.
Step 1: check the competition
Start by checking the competition, and not only for your own product. Look at whether Ozon sells an analogue at all, how many such products it sells and which positions they hold.
Compare click-through rates and look at which tools you use versus which tools Ozon uses. Much of this is publicly available, even without a premium subscription.
Step 2: do not play the dumping game
The second step is to avoid price dumping at all costs. The most common mistake is trying to beat Ozon on price. Most often it ends in lost profit.
Ozon's main goal is not earning on each item. Its goal is retaining the audience, and that retention often comes precisely from lower prices.
Competing with Ozon through dumping is always a losing move. So do not do it.
Step 3: move into specialisation
The third step is to specialise. If Ozon sells, say, a plain white mug, you start selling not a white mug but a mug for a fisherman. A gift set of mugs. A limited-edition series of mugs. Mugs for a tea ceremony.
And so on.
When Ozon enters your category and you want to stay in it, the task is not to fight head-on with a stronger competitor that has an unfair advantage. The task is to specialise.
Step 4: look for open categories
The fourth step is to look for categories Ozon has not entered yet. If you are only choosing a product to sell and considering which categories to enter, check carefully whether Ozon itself sells products in that category. If it does, it is better to skip that category in advance and look for other positions.
Step 5: build a brand
The fifth step is to start building a brand. When you have a brand, when people search for your specific brand, it becomes much harder to compete with you, even for players as large as Ozon.
If you have a brand, branded demand, branded traffic and branded queries - on Ozon, on Yandex or anywhere else - Ozon will find it many times harder to compete with you. The brand Ozon promotes may have no branded demand of its own, and traffic and sales volume will flow to you instead.
Bottom line
You now compete not only with other sellers but with the platform itself. Choosing a product by demand alone is no longer enough - check who your competitor will be: an ordinary seller or Ozon.
