How to Choose a Franchise: Tips for Beginner Investors

The e-commerce market is growing rapidly and opening up new opportunities for investors. Of particular interest is the Wildberry variety, one of the leaders in this market. In this article, we’ll analyze the investment prospects for Wildberries and understand why this platform can be a good investment option.

The Advantages of Investing in Wildberry Businesses: Simplicity, Speed, and Millions of Opportunities

WB offers almost everything to make life easier for a potential investor. The platform actively assists newcomers, from ready-made guides for opening a store to supporting Wildberries with advertising, sales promotion, and logistics. The marketplace offers detailed video tutorials, webinars, and round-the-clock feedback.

The average initial financial investment is 30,000–50,000 rubles, which is much lower than when starting a traditional offline business: there’s no need to rent premises or hire staff, and overhead costs are kept to a minimum.

Investing in Wildberries gives entrepreneurs access to an audience of over 70 million monthly buyers, significantly expanding their potential sales market.

Wildberries Affiliate Program: The Gateway to a Successful Start

The main advantages include easier market entry and more favorable conditions.

Special Features:

1. Minimum investment: You can start with amounts as low as 30,000 rubles, making entering the market affordable.
2. Advertising Support: The platform offers new partners advertising bonuses and subsidies of up to 20% for marketing campaigns.
3. Technical Support: The support service helps resolve issues at any stage of the business 24/7.
4. Access to Training Materials: Video tutorials, training courses, and webinars are offered to help you quickly understand the platform’s features.
5. Analysis Tools: Provide tools for needs analysis.

For many novice sellers, these conditions are the deciding factor.

Unexpected Bonuses: Inspiring Logistics and Simplicity

One of the highlights is the powerful logistics system. Compared to other platforms, it has a truly impressive network that helps minimize shipping costs and reduce time risks. Most products are delivered faster than in any other marketplace in Russia.

On average, delivery takes 1-3 days in major cities and up to 5-7 days in more remote areas. Wildberries uses its own logistics centers and partners with services such as SDEK and Boxberry to ensure the fastest and highest-quality service.

It’s also worth noting that the platform actively utilizes omnichannel delivery methods: customers can choose from convenient order pickup points, courier delivery, or even pickup from partner stores.

By integrating with Wildberries, you can receive automatic notifications about replenishment needs and analytical reports that will help you plan deliveries and avoid product shortages.

Disadvantages and Risks of Investing in Wildberries Stores: Problems You Should Know Beforehand

As with any business, there are pitfalls here too. The main risk when opening a Wildberries store is, of course, choosing the wrong product. According to research, approximately 30% of new sellers experience problems due to incorrect category selection.

For example, there is much more competition in the clothing and accessories categories than in niche home improvement or sporting goods categories. It’s important to remember that it can take 1 to 3 months to find your niche. The wrong choice can lead to low profitability for your Wildberries store.

Furthermore, running a store is time-consuming: creating product cards takes about 2 to 3 hours per item, and daily sales tracking and communicating with customers takes 2 to 5 hours per day. All of this requires a great deal of effort, especially in the initial phase when processes also need to be constantly optimized to increase efficiency.

High Competition: How to Establish Yourself Among Thousands of Opportunities?

One of the factors sellers face is high market competition. Hundreds of new entrants join every day, each seeking to occupy its niche. If you don’t put a lot of effort into advertising and pay attention to quality, you can quickly lose sight of the multitude of similar offerings. Investing in Wildberries can generate income, but you need to constantly remain vigilant and monitor your competitors.

Hidden Risks When Starting a Wildberries Business: What’s Behind the Scenes of the Investment?

Threats often relate to relationships with suppliers, whose cooperation may seem easy at first glance, but is far from it. Practical examples show that many implementers face serious problems.

For example, one supplier in the Rostov region regularly experienced delivery delays of 10 to 15 days, resulting in missed deadlines and negative customer feedback. Another case comes from the Ivanovo region, where a batch of textiles was delivered with defects (deviations of up to 20% in fabric quality).

It’s also worth considering the specifics of the regulations. Wildberries’ rules are subject to change, which sometimes causes unexpected difficulties for sellers. Fee adjustments or changes in refund policies can affect the bottom line. It’s important to stay up-to-date and be ready to adapt.

How much does it cost to open a store on Wildberries? Investing with real numbers

Here, we can talk about fairly flexible conditions: minimum costs start from about 30,000 to 50,000 rubles, which includes registration, the purchase of the first batch of products, and investments in Wildberries’ marketing. However, if you want to make a profit quickly, you should also consider marketing costs: advertising on the platform is an important part of success.

For larger players, the amount can reach 300,000 rubles or more. It all depends on the purchase volume and the desired positions on the platform. For anyone looking to try their hand at online trading, Wildberries investments remain an attractive option.

Is it worth investing in Wildberries stores?: Conclusions

In summary, the system has advantages and disadvantages. The location offers great opportunities for anyone looking to work and study. The quick return on investment, platform support, and a large audience of buyers make VB an interesting investment option.

If you’re up for a challenge and want to try your hand at this dynamic business, investing in Wildberries is an opportunity to enter the world of online trading with minimal costs and maximum support. The main thing to remember is that success comes to those who are not afraid of difficulties and are willing to constantly develop.

E-commerce reached a high level of maturity in 2025. Leading platforms in the Russian Federation — Wildberries, Ozon, Yandex Market — continue to grow their audience, expand their assortment, and implement automation mechanisms for sellers. However, intensifying competition raises one of the main questions for a novice entrepreneur: is it too late to enter marketplaces in the conditions of an overheated market?

The positions of the leaders have solidified, product niches are largely occupied, and advertising costs are rising. On the other hand, the customer base is growing, delivery geographies are expanding, and algorithms are being improved. Therefore, evaluating entry in 2025 requires a strategic approach based on calculations rather than emotions.

The reality of marketplaces for businesses in 2025

Online sales have become a standard not only for large brands but also for small businesses. Demand is generated within platforms, consumers explore product cards without leaving the interface, and compare offers among thousands of sellers. Marketplaces become a tool where there is no need to build a website, set up logistics, or manually manage payment systems. Everything is concentrated in one window.

However, along with the increase in turnover, the complexity of entry also increases. A newcomer faces high competition, the need to operate within strict regulations, manage assortment under price pressure. Therefore, the question “is it too late to enter marketplaces” requires calculating the breakeven point considering commissions, fulfillment, marketing, and product cost.

Why it’s not too late to enter marketplaces?

Despite the saturation of certain categories, the market scale leaves room for maneuver. Inside popular platforms, hundreds of new requests emerge daily, demand for specialized products, local brands, and flexible offers. Therefore, the answer to the question of whether it’s too late to enter marketplaces in 2025 depends not on time but on approach!

Competition has increased, but so has the audience. If in 2020 mass demand products dominated the platforms, today the winner is the one who analyzes the niche, optimizes the product card, works on conversion, invests in traffic, and builds a sales funnel on the platform.

Starting on marketplaces: key actions in 2025

Entering electronic platforms requires preparation. Below is a list of initial steps necessary to launch a project from scratch:

• analyze demand and choose a product niche with minimal competition;
• calculate profitability considering all costs;
• register and verify as a seller;
• create a product matrix and package initial batches;
• develop a unique selling proposition for product cards;
• optimize titles and descriptions using keywords;
• shoot and process visual content;
• integrate logistics and choose a fulfillment strategy;
• launch an advertising campaign on the platform;
• plan the accounting and analytics system.

This step-by-step sequence forms the basis on which sustainable growth is built. Without it, even the best product may not attract traffic and therefore not generate profit.

Is it too late to enter marketplaces: when not to start?

For an objective assessment, it is necessary to consider situations where entry is indeed impractical. Below is a list of factors that indicate when to postpone entry or change the business model:

• lack of financial cushion for the first three months of operation;
• unwillingness to regularly invest in promotion;
• desire to work manually without automation of accounting and analytics;
• choosing a product without uniqueness or low turnover;
• focus on price without calculating cost and commission levels;
• ignoring customer service and reviews;
• blindly copying others’ product cards without analysis;
• lack of a strategy for repeat sales;
• negative attitude towards working with platforms as partners;
• underestimating analytics as a daily management element.

Such mistakes lead to rapid loss of working capital, poor ratings, and the inability to scale. In other words, the answer to the question of whether it’s too late to enter marketplaces will be affirmative for those who are not ready to change their mindset.

Selling on Wildberries, Ozon, and Yandex Market: what works in 2025?

The largest platforms require different approaches. Selling on Wildberries today revolves around speed, price, and a wide assortment, Ozon focuses on deep analytics, cross-selling, segmentation, while Yandex Market provides maximum support for local brands with an emphasis on SEO promotion.

Each platform changes the rules. New packaging requirements, penalties, conversion recommendations, traffic automation, and KPIs all become operational routines. This is why the question “is it too late to enter marketplaces” is often asked by those who fear change. But in such an environment, the adaptive, not the swift, emerge as winners.

Secrets of growth on marketplaces in high competition conditions

Despite the increasing number of sellers, scaling remains achievable. Strategies to expand beyond a single platform, optimize product cards, reduce returns, and broaden the assortment allow for upward movement. With a systematic approach, rapid growth on marketplaces remains attainable.

Against the backdrop of growing competition and stricter requirements, the main focus shifts towards working on customer loyalty, feedback, and assortment management. Investments in brand development within the platform, customization of packaging, and the implementation of automated sales tools become integral parts of the strategy. In this context, the question of whether it’s too late to enter marketplaces sounds different — it’s now crucial not just to enter the platform but to do it wisely and with a clear understanding of the new rules of the game!

How to start selling on marketplaces as a newcomer in 2025?

A newcomer must understand that entry is not just about clicking “register,” but a stage where one must be not only a seller but also an analyst, logistician, and marketer. Only in this case will launching a business on marketplaces be systematic rather than chaotic.

It is necessary to monitor positions daily, study competitors’ strategies, work on content, and adapt unique selling propositions. The winners are not those who upload a product card first, but those who manage all metrics.

Conclusion

In practice, it becomes too late for those who are unwilling to change. Marketplaces become a separate business with their own laws, logic, and algorithms. Entry requires investments, patience, and systematic work. However, with the right strategy, any entrepreneur can build a profitable channel.

The final answer to the question of whether it’s too late to enter marketplaces depends on whether the seller is willing to invest in content, analytics, support, logistics speed, and experiments. Only in this case does “too late” turn into “successful”!