Yandex.Lavka, the on-demand e-grocery delivery service launched by Russia’s NASDAQ-listed tech giant Yandex, announces its expansion.

The service, which delivers approximately 2,500 types of essential and non-essential goods in a variety of categories, such as groceries, ready meals, hot drinks and smart Yandex devices within 10-15 minutes of receiving the order, is now available in Kazan, a city of 1.3 million in Russia’s Republic of Tatarstan.

Kazan joins Moscow, St. Petersburg, Nizhny Novgorod, and the suburbs of Tel Aviv, where Yandex.Lavka already operates via a network for more than 280 local warehouse sites.

Yandex.Lavka prides itself on working with local producers, whose goods represent about a quarter of the entire range, including local dairy and meat delicacies, and a broad range of halal products popular in the predominantly Muslim Republic of Tatarstan. It also sells a variety of products under its private label called Iz Lavki and offers a wide range of locally prepared ready-made meals.

The on-demand delivery service has a high-tech approach to pin-pointing local preferences by operating an ‘experimental shelf’, where hard-to-find products from smaller producers are trialed. The goods that enjoy strong demand are then added to Yandex.Lavka’s permanent local assortment, making it easier for customers to shop local.

Thanks to a special layout and an unusual formula for stalking warehouse shelves, as well as a proprietary algorithm to maximize efficiency when moving around the space, it takes no more than 2-3 minutes to assemble an order at Yandex.Lavka. Couriers deliver orders on bicycles – a green, fast, and safe mode of transportation. There are no service charges for Yandex.Lavka orders, but in times of peak demand, the surge mechanism triggers a minimum order requirement.

Yandex.Lavka currently operates from 7am to 11:30pm in Kazan, with plans to switch to a 24-hour service in the future. Orders can be placed via Yandex.Eats, Yandex.Lavka, Yandex Go, and Yandex.Market apps for iOS and Android.

In addition, the Yandex.Lavka warehouses network in Kazan and in other regions of operation will enable Yandex to strengthen its logistics and fulfilment infrastructure, including by serving as pick-up locations for click-and-collect orders from Yandex.Market, the company’s e-commerce arm.

Vadim Petrov, Director of Operations at Yandex.Lavka, commented:

"We’re pleased to be able to offer our fast, on-demand service to more customers, who were unable to access it in the past. It is great to see Kazan embracing innovation, which underscores Tatarstan’s reputation as a modern place that moves quickly with the times. We hope that our service will benefit the region’s consumers and producers alike, as it does in all other areas where we operate.’’

About Yandex.Lavka:

Yandex Group launched Yandex.Lavka in the summer of 2019 and continues to offer this service as part of the Yandex ecosystem with an audience of ~50 million people.  In a relatively short period of time, Yandex.Lavka became one of the top players in Russia’s e-grocery market, which surged 3.6 times to reach RUB 155 billion in 2020, according to Infoline research. The e-grocery sector is set to expand further to reach as much as RUB 300 billion by the end of 2021, Infoline estimated in its most recent report. Yandex.Lavka has its own app. It is also available via the Yandex.Eats app, Yandex GO super app and the Yandex Browser.   

About Yandex Group:

NASDAQ-listed Yandex is often compared to Google, but it’s more like Amazon, Uber, Google, Deliveroo and Spotify all rolled into one. Today the Yandex ecosystem includes over 90 mobile apps, services and products, including an autonomous delivery robot Yandex. Rover, express grocery delivery Yandex. Lavka, AI-based voice assistant Alisa, restaurant delivery Yandex.Eats, online marketplace Yandex. Market, ride-haling business Yandex.Taxi, Yandex.Cloud, Yandex.Drive car sharing, music streaming, classifieds, personalized news and many others. Yandex also remains the most popular search engine in the Russian speaking world, commanding a 60.5% share of Russia’s total mobile search traffic as of Q4, 2020.