Russian Post national postal operator will start selling Russian wines this summer. The experiment will begin in Moscow and the Volga region of Mordovia.
If the product enjoys high demand, sales may reach RUR 100 bln ($1.4 bln) by 2025. Orders will be taken online.
France and Austria have similar services, but Russia banned online alcohol distribution in 2007. Certain manufacturers, however, have been bypassing the restriction by offering a click & collect service, where the customer can order a product online, and pay for it and collect it at a store, RBC reports.
Russia’s 25 largest wine producers will join the postal operator’s experiment. The company plans to invest about RUR 5 bln ($68 mio) by the end of 2025 to develop a platform for the project.
Invest Foresight reported in January that Russian Post announced it had discontinued another experiment — selling beer at branch offices. However, the company then added the service was actually quite popular in some regions of Russia.