Russian social media site VKontakte has invited some of its largest on-line groups to participate in the beta testing of an online ecommerce tool aimed at streamlining interactions between buyers and sellers and at allowing users to search for items of interest without leaving the platform. If successful, the service will be rolled out to all of its groups and communities.
VKontakte COO Andrew Rogozov“In the last few years we have seen the rapid development of e-commerce,” its COO Andrew Rogozov said, “and more and more users are make purchases on the Internet….. We are creating a new platform which will enable small and medium sized retailers to gain access to Vkontakte’s millions of users.”
VKontakte is the largest Russian-language social network in Europe and is particularly popular in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.