Adidas idea pays off for billionaire online retail entrepreneur
11/05/2020
In recent comments to the Financial Times, founder, Tatyana Bakalchuk, said that, although the idea of launching Wildberries had come to her in 2004 when she was at home on maternity leave, it was 2008 before she realised how big the possibilities were.
During the financial crisis, she was able to buy €1 million worth of athletic shoes from adidas and sell them online to customers in all parts of Russia over the following two years. Now she is a billionaire, employing 48,000 people, with an online platform selling products from Puma, Nike, New Balance, Quiksilver, ASICS, Reebok and a wide range of other brands, not all linked to sports.
She hired 12,000 new employees at the end of March, saying that people who had lost their jobs because of lockdown and covid-19 could work for her. Wildberries said it wanted to extend a helping hand to Russians at “a difficult moment for the country”.
Share this story:
