Alternative to Avito for Russian business or how marketplaces are suffocating entrepreneurs and what to do about it

Imagine: you post a new product, and in the morning you find it in the digital "basement" along with four and a half million other blocked positions - and then try to prove that you're not a camel. It's no surprise that nearly half of sellers in their first year are left with nothing, not seeing a single penny in profit, while marketplaces at the same time organize discount carousels, sending your products on sale without your blessing.

But not everything is so gloomy:

• Those who have decided to move to their own websites and blogs recall these times as a nightmare.
• A surge in conversions tens of times over.
• A flow of clients and a sense of control, which is so lacking on platforms.

It seems it's time to think: maybe it's time to stop tolerating and start building your own digital empire, where you set the rules, not a soulless algorithm?

Crisis of trust in marketplaces among Russian businesses

Put a label on your forehead that says “newbie” — and just a couple of months later, you start to understand why almost half of the sellers who decided to try their luck on the platforms never saw their money:

• you have goods, but there's no income,
• but right next to it is a direct acquaintance with the “violations and fines” section,
• where for an incorrectly chosen category, you can easily get a receipt for an amount that could have paid for a trip to Sochi.

The irony is that the number of blocked positions is already rivaling the number of forgotten socks behind the couch — millions of cards are lying in digital “coma” while their owners are racking their brains trying to figure out what happened. It's no surprise that many businessmen get the feeling that they're playing a lottery:

• will you make a profit today?
• or will you again be among the 46% for whom “sales” is just a pretty line in their personal account.

But the goal is not just to survive among algorithms and discount battles, but to actually build something of your own, where every effort brings a tangible result — not in the form of another fine, but in the form of real, living money and satisfied customers.

Rising fees and fines are suffocating small businesses

When the commission for every sale sneaks up on you not like a cautious mouse, but like a huge bear, that not only takes its share — say, grown from the usual 3% to insatiable 5%, — but also threatens to issue a fine of 25 thousand rubles for any, even the smallest mistake, small businesses start to twitch nervously and count valerian in wholesale boxes.

Imagine: you sold, let's say, ten pairs of socks — and then suddenly you owe more than you earned, because somewhere in the description you put a comma in the wrong place or accidentally sent the client “sparkling mustard” instead of “mustard”.

And this is not a joke, but a harsh reality — when half of the sellers after a year of trading on marketplaces remember their profit like a past love: it was there, but now it's gone.

No wonder those who decide to get out of this bear's den and build their own cozy internet corner — a website with a blog, for example, — then watch with surprise as their conversions soar faster than iPhone prices after another presentation, and their income suddenly starts to grow exponentially.

So if the next letter from the marketplace makes you want to scream into a pillow, maybe it's time to think: isn't it time to change the rules of the game — and the platform too?

Forced sales as a new tool for pressure (40-50% discounts without sellers' consent)

Imagine: you have just listed your product on a marketplace, rubbing your hands in anticipation of profit, and in the morning you discover that your price has suddenly dropped by 50% - without your knowledge, without your consent, as if someone envied your margin and decided to put it on a crash diet.

This is not a one-off case - thousands of entrepreneurs across the country suddenly find themselves participants in "generous" sales that they didn't even plan.

The moment when the marketplace turns not into a platform for growth, but into a cunning puppeteer: sellers lose not only income but also control over their business.

Remember what it's like to invest your soul and money in a product, and then watch as your profit drains into endless "discount" black holes, where a discount is not a joy for the buyer, but a headache for the seller.

The irony of the situation: even if you sell golden socks handmade, the marketplace will enthusiastically send them to a sale at the price of cotton ones.

In the end, instead of the promised easy sales, the entrepreneur gets a survival lesson in the face of total platform dictatorship, where your opinion on price becomes nothing more than a joke for the internal chat of managers.

• Sudden price drops
• Cunning sales
• Loss of control over income
• Headache for the seller
• Platform dictatorship

Mass blocking of product cards paralyzes trade

One morning you wake up to find that your business has vanished: all your products have suddenly disappeared from the marketplace, as if they were taken away by a frightened Santa Claus before summer. It turns out you're not alone: overnight, millions of product cards are blocked across the country — 4.5 million, to be exact, but who's counting?

Yesterday you were selling foldable stools and were the king of picnics, but today your product "doesn't meet platform standards", even though you've been selling the same stool as yesterday and the day before. And getting your product reinstated is like playing roulette: either you're lucky, or you're out of luck, while competitors seize the market.

And if you want to dispute the decision, be prepared to pay a hefty fine of up to 25 thousand for being in the "wrong" category, because apparently, a stool is now considered furniture of the future, and only a select few are allowed to sell it.

It's no laughing matter when your business is paralyzed, and customers turn to those who haven't yet been caught in the crosshairs of the invisible moderator. In such moments, you realize that:

• Dependence on marketplaces is like living on a powder keg, where every morning is a surprise, and not always a pleasant one.

Churn statistics show a turn towards independence

While marketplaces enthusiastically issue fines of 25 thousand for an innocently confused category and block product cards as if catching Pokémon (already 4.5 million on the counter!), Russian businesses quietly but massively polish their own websites and blogs. The reason is as simple as an electric kettle manual: when out of every ten sellers, almost five earn only experience, not money, even the most patient start thinking about independence.

It turns out that the SEO market is not just growing – it's like it's kicking down the door, showing a 50% growth, while marketplaces get stuck in their own commissions and blocks. The dynamics are reminiscent of a mass exodus from a sinking ship: only instead of cries of "save yourself!" – business smiles, investments in content, and new landing pages.

Inspired by stories of conversion rate growth tens of times (one company even jumped over the 2400% mark!), sellers finally realized: it's time to build a house on their own foundation, not on a rented swamp, where every sneeze can cost a month's revenue.

Ten Russian companies showed the right way

While some are trying to survive in the conditions of digital Gulag, where every wrong move threatens to incur fines as big as a nice dinner at a restaurant, others - the resourceful ones - are building their own info-empires according to all the canons of the XXI century.

Here, for example, is a dozen domestic companies that decided: why share hard-earned money with platforms if you can grow your own client base? They didn't just start a blog "for the sake of it" - they turned it into a real magnet for orders.

• You publish a couple of dozen articles a month - and here's a stream of leads gushing like a spring flood,
• and marketing report numbers start to look like phone numbers:
• audience growth of hundreds of percent,
• conversion explodes so much that the team of managers is urgently expanded.

Take at least Tinkoff Journal - these guys managed to gather 10 million unique readers every month. Ten million, Karl! That's as if every tenth Russian came to read about finance. And their email database of 5 million subscribers is not just a list of contacts from business cards at an exhibition. 56% email openings - try to achieve that with at least one advertising campaign!

Or here's techies from Habr - there, corporate blogs of Google, Yandex, and Sber attract 5-7 thousand readers per article. ICL Services is generally great: in 4 years, they posted only 86 materials, but of such high quality - 219 expert subscribers who read every line and bring contracts worth millions.

Bankers are also not sleeping. Sber with its 100+ million customers has deployed a whole ecosystem of blogs - from developers to tech media. VTBR and Alfa Bank operate in the corporate segment, and their trust ratings (43% and 19%) work better than any advertising budget.

Electronics retailers - DNS, M.Video, Citilink - have turned tech reviews into a goldmine. Yes, their engagement metrics are more modest than those of banks, but during sales seasons, traffic surges so much that servers can barely keep up.

And what about Texterra? 813 thousand visitors per month, with 65.67% coming from organic search. This means that two-thirds of the audience comes on their own, without spending a single ruble on advertising - simply because the content is genuinely useful.

This is not a fantasy from a presentation at a business breakfast, but real experience confirmed by case studies from banks to furniture manufacturers. Looking at such results, even the most skeptical director suddenly becomes convinced of the power of independence: "What if we try too?" - and just a couple of months later, the first case study appears on the website, which brings more applications than the entire last year's epic on a platform with endless fines and blocks.

The economic benefit of independence is measured in numbers

Do you know what unites the owners of sewing factories, online drawing schools, and manufacturers of designer poufs? No, it's not a passion for coffee and habit trackers, but the day they finally decided to take a bold experiment: "Let's create our own corner on the internet!"

And then the magic began, which even made the accountant stop frowning:

• Traffic skyrocketed - a 360% increase
• Applications poured in like confetti from a gift box
• Conversion suddenly hit the ceiling, showing a 2463% increase

The owners began to recalculate their income anew, losing track of the zeros: some increased their revenue almost 18 times in the first six months!

It seems like there's a catch somewhere, but it's not with them, it's with those who continue to tolerate:

• Commissions of 5%
• Fines of up to 250,000
• Permanent card blocks

The sweetest part is when the first client comes not through a soulless storefront, but thanks to your word, your story, your joke in a blog. You can't compare this to any marketplace: it's not just about money, it's about excitement, pride, and that feeling of being the captain, not just a passenger in an economy-class carriage.

Practical cases of successful transition

When Div-One realized that their cards on the marketplace were disappearing faster than their favorite slippers on sale, and the commission was growing like yeast dough in July heat, the team decided it was time to change the rules of the game – and went into free navigation.

The transition to their own website and the launch of a content marketing strategy and SEO turned out to be not just a breath of fresh air, but a real oxygen tank:

• expenses on fines and commissions became a thing of the past
• profitability returned, like a cat coming home after a week's wandering

Simple Touch and Kover.ru also didn't wait until their cards were completely banned – and in two clicks created their cozy online nests, where no one forces them to sell branded cases and mats at the price of a pack of pasta.

Imagine:

• conversion increased by 25 times
• traffic – by 3.6 times

And all this without nervous bursts due to "error in category" or sudden blocking. It turns out that saving a business doesn't require a magic wand – it's enough to simply come out from under the marketplace's control and start building your own platform, where the main judge is you yourself, not an invisible algorithm with a "block" button.

Timeframe and Critical Success Factors

The path to independence from marketplaces is no longer a grueling marathon with an unclear finish line — modern tools like Genefy turn it into a brisk mid-distance run, where the first fruits can be harvested in just 90 days, not after light-years.

Recall how recently creating your own website with a blog seemed like a task of "building a spaceship": finding a programmer, designer, copywriter, gathering them in one Zoom room, and not getting into a fight — a mission almost impossible. Now everything has become simpler — there are many services on the market where even accountant Ivan Ivanovich with minimal marketing sense can, with a few clicks:

• launch a landing page,
• connect analytics,
• start collecting applications.

But there are nuances:

1. Without a decent budget (from 300 thousand per month),
2. A strong team and patience, you shouldn't expect a "wow!" effect in a week — the first noticeable results will appear by the third month,
3. Stable returns will start to delight you in about a year.

The main thing is not to expect that the website will draw banners, write texts, and attract clients while you sip on country wine: without investments and painstaking work, there will be no magic here, but the freedom from commissions and random blocking is worth it!

Genefy: your personal marketplace independence constructor

While you were reading this article and trying on success stories, perhaps the question was already spinning in your head: "Sounds tempting, but where to start?" The answer is simpler than it seems - this very article was created in Genefy.io, a service that turns creating selling content from a headache into an exciting process.

Imagine: instead of spending weeks searching for a copywriter who "understands your pain", you get a ready-made article, landing page, or email newsletter in 15 minutes. And it's not template chatter about "innovative solutions for your business", but live content with your voice, which:

• AI assistant generates texts, understanding your niche and audience
• Visual editor allows you to create beautiful pages without programmers
• SEO optimization is built-in by default - Google will love your content
• Ready-made templates for any task: from a blog to selling landing pages

The best part - Genefy grows with you. Started with a simple blog? Great! Tomorrow, no one will catch up with you!

The price of the question? Less than one fine on the marketplace. And the result is complete independence and control over your business. Try it right now: 2000 tokens for registration, without cards and hidden payments. Just go to genefy.io and make sure that you can create your digital empire today, not "someday later".

Need a team to do everything turnkey? Write to us on Telegram @genefy

A strategic choice for ambitious entrepreneurs

And here comes the moment of truth: either you get your own keys to the digital shop, or you'll spend your whole life knocking on other people's doors, hoping not to get kicked out for an uncoordinated action or a five-letter typo in the product description. The choice seems obvious, but in practice, it requires courage and strategic intuition.

Imagine that your audience is not a rented crowd at someone else's party, but your personal guests, for whom you set the music, menu, and even the dress code.

• At the start, there are more expenses — not less than 100 thousand per month.
• The first few months are like trying to cook borscht from Excel spreadsheets and incomplete technical specifications.
• Every interaction turns into your own statistics.

Those who took the risk are already bragging: incomes are growing tenfold, and clients return not because the algorithm dictates it, but truly — for your service, not for a discount.

In the end, the freedom to keep your finger on the pulse, rather than waiting for the next "letter of happiness" from the platform, becomes not just a luxury, but a matter of survival for businesses with ambitions.