According to customs data for the first 11 months of this year, the region with the fastest growth in foreign trade exports this year is Russia. However, many foreign trade companies do not know how to develop the Russian market . Let’s talk about it today.
China's main export products to the Russian market : mechanical and electrical products, consumer goods, textiles, automobiles and parts, furniture and toys, metal products, minerals and ceramics, chemicals, rubber products, etc. If your product falls into this category, it is most likely right to develop the Russian market.
If you decide to develop the Russian market, you must have a salesperson who understands Russian , because Russian and English are very different. Russian belongs to the Slavic language family and English belongs to the Germanic language family. Russian uses the Cyrillic alphabet, which has 33 letters, while English uses the Latin alphabet, which has 26 letters. Russian has three genders: masculine, feminine, and neuter, as well as singular and plural numbers, while English only has singular and plural numbers and no gender distinction. The pronunciation and input methods of Russian and English are completely different. Therefore, it is necessary to recruit specialized Russian-speaking salespeople. Relying on translators is not a long-term solution. Judging from the recruitment situation, there is not a particular shortage of Russian sales, and there are still a lot of graduates majoring in Russian.
After having Russian sales, special Russian promotional materials must be produced for the Russian market . Due to historical reasons, the penetration rate of English in Russia is not high. It is necessary for Russian brochures to have a small number of customers who can understand English, which involves translation issues. Yandex has free translation tools, Lingus and DeepL have good reputations, and of course GPT4. The effect of translating to Russian in GPT4 is average, but translating from English to Russian can basically be used directly . Of course, after the tool translation is completed, it would be best if it can be proofread manually.
Then there is the need for a dedicated Russian website . Because Russian translations are generally longer than Chinese and English, Russian websites usually fill the screen, which is different from the design of Chinese and English websites.
Russia has its own search engine, just like Baidu in China, called Yandex.
In order to have better natural ranking on Yandex , the Russian website must be equipped with a dedicated Russian domain name and Russian server. Russian domain names end with .ru, and the registration fee is generally several hundred yuan per year. Alibaba Cloud and Godaddy that we usually use do not support Russian domain name registration, and it is impossible to purchase local servers in Russia.
In addition, through Yandex's webmaster tool , your website can be indexed by Yandex faster. The site command can check the inclusion status of your website in Yandex. If it is not included, you can manually submit it on the webmaster.
Yandex also has a keyword search volume prompt tool wordstat , which is very useful when selecting keywords for Russian websites.
Yandex seo is logically similar to Google seo. It also has title, description, h tag, EEAT, external links, etc. Friends who don’t know how to do seo can contact us for operation. Yandex can also do paid promotion . If you open an account this month, Yandex will officially give you a US$500 bonus . By the end of this year, interested friends will quickly take action.
Russia has its own Gmail mailbox, called mail.ru , which is the largest email service provider in Russia. Using this mailbox to send emails to Russian customers can effectively reduce the probability of spam.
In terms of instant communication tools, WhatsApp and Telegram are the tools with the largest number of users. Skype also has a certain user base . You can choose the appropriate communication tool according to the customer's situation.
VK is Russia's largest and most popular social network , similar to Facebook. Facebook, Instagram, twitter, and tiktok also have a certain user base. When doing social media operations, you must first cover VK, and then synchronize it to Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Tiktok and other platforms. Acquire customers through social media and expand the influence of the company and products in Russia.
After the conflict between Russia and Ukraine broke out, many banks in Russia were excluded from the SWIFT system. At the same time, many banks were connected to China's cross-border interbank payment system CIPS, so Sino-Russian trade can be settled directly in RMB. However, if the paying bank involves a sanctioned bank, there is a high probability that the payment will be returned. Therefore, the customer must first contact his paying bank to check whether it is on the European and American sanctions list . Secondly, it is necessary to check whether Russian customers are on the sanctions list of Europe and the United States , especially companies involved in semiconductors, aerospace, energy and chemicals, mining, and engineering services, and they must take precautions against risks. Try to require customers to use cross-border RMB payments through their own company accounts to avoid having their bank accounts blocked due to payments from unknown sources.
Some foreign trade companies are also worried about whether Russian customers can get export tax rebates when paying in RMB . In fact, it does not matter. The tax rebate has nothing to do with the payment currency. As long as the export process and procedures are standardized, foreign trade companies can successfully obtain export tax rebates from Russian customers.