Wildberries launched a service to search for private masters to provide services

Wildberries launched the “WB Services” section in test mode to search for private specialists. The new functionality is available to part of users inside WB Resale on the website and in the mobile application, the press service of the company told RBC.

“The new direction expands the possibilities of C2C-interaction between Wildberries users: now they will be able to find specialists for everyday tasks, and masters – to place offers and attract new customers”, – stated in the message.

So far, through WB Services, you can find specialists for repairing apartments and houses. The section presents 14 areas, including plumbing, electricity, finishing work, services for the hour, installation of windows and doors, air conditioning and ventilation, furniture assembly and turnkey repair. Wildberries plans to add other categories of services.

“We start testing from one category, but we see a much broader scenario – to make the search for a specialist for a variety of life scenarios a familiar part of interaction with Wildberries,” said Ilya Zagradsky, Product Director of WB Resale.

In the ad card, the user will be able to view photos, description of works, initial cost and specialist profile. You can contact the master through a chat, after which the parties independently agree on the scope of work, place and deadlines, as well as the final price. At the testing stage, placing ads in the service will be free, and users will pay directly to each other, outside the platform.

Ads can be placed both by existing sellers of WB Resale and new users who have access to testing. During the first stage of the launch of the new feature, specialists will be able to place ads about their services on Wildberries for free.

Wildberries launched the WB Resale section in the summer of 2025. Initially, users could place ads there for the resale of goods that they had previously bought on the marketplace. In February of this year, Wildberries expanded the capabilities of the service: it is now possible to sell almost any goods through it, regardless of where they were purchased.

Will WB be able to compete with Avito

In 2024, the volume of the broad market of paid household services reached about 17.9 trillion rubles, including about 11 trillion rubles in the B2C segment, recalls Alexey Fedorov, Chairman of the Council of the Chamber of Commerce for the Development of E-Commerce. Through digital platforms then passed about 3.8 trillion rubles, or 21% of the market. The potential of the platform segment for 2026, the expert estimates at 7.5 trillion rubles, or 28% of the market. “This is a market of several trillion rubles, and it is actively developing,” Fedorov said.

The undisputed leader in this segment remains Avito Services with a share of about 45%, Fedorov estimated. Another 20% may be accounted for by Profi.ru, which claims 3.7 million specialists working through the platform, 15 million customers and more than 28,000 new orders daily, followed by YouDo, Yandex Performers, Yula and specialized services with shares of 3-5%.

According to Fyodor Virin, partner of Data Insight, the C2C services market in Russia remains one of the least transparent segments of the digital economy. Its volume is difficult to estimate reliably, since a significant part of transactions is not executed inside the platforms: the user can find the performer in the ad, negotiate in a chat or by phone, and then pay for services directly. At the same time, most of the market still exists offline - from tutoring and cleaning to repairs and household services, Virin noted.

The prospects of Wildberries in this segment Fedorov considers serious, since the platform has a formed audience. The company claims 82 million monthly customers in 11 countries and has already demonstrated the ability to quickly build new C2C scenarios inside the usual application using the example of WB Resale. But he made a reservation that the service market is much more complex than the classic commodity marketplace. “It is not enough to bring a client here. We need a sufficient density of performers in a particular city and category, reviews, verification of specialists, response speed, trust. Plumbing in Khabarovsk does not care how many millions of users the platform has in Moscow. Therefore, free accommodation at the first stage looks logical: first, Wildberries need to gain supply, test demand, etc., says Alexey Fedorov. In his opinion, if the critical mass of the audience is reached, the company will be able to introduce the usual monetization tools for the market - paid promotion, professional tariffs, payment for leads, and then, possibly, secure settlements and commission for transactions.

The strongest scenario for the platform, he believes, is to take advantage of existing demand for goods when a customer has bought an air conditioner and needs an installation. “If Wildberries learns to link the purchase of goods with a subsequent service, it will be much more interesting than just another bulletin board,” he said. At the same time, the formation of the network effect and retention of demand will remain the key challenge. “In services, a good handyman after the first order often stays with the customer in the phone book, and the next deal goes without a platform. Therefore, the service has to constantly create new demand and attract new performers, Fedorov said.

The main feature of the segment is that the Internet works well as a showcase and a tool for first contact, but much worse as a medium for regular transactions. This is one of the reasons why many services have failed to build a sustainable economy on the marketplace model. More viable were services that work not with lead generation, but with the automation of the business of performers – for example, with online recording, customer accounting and working time. At the same time, the frequency of access to services is still incomparable with the frequency of purchases of goods: the user can purchase clothes from several to dozens of times a year, while the service of fitting or repair may be needed only once. “For Wildberries, marketplace services can be an additional source of revenue and an advantage for a large audience.” But it will be difficult to build a huge independent business on this, primarily due to the limited and irregular need of users for such services, Virin said.

Consumers are slowly but inevitably migrating from goods to services. “The post-Soviet generation grew up, people born in the 90s and zero, when families had plus or minus all goods,” says Virin. And if the older generations sought to accumulate goods, then the next generation does not seek this. No need. These generations are moving to services, and that's now doing the strange thing with retail, which is it's flowing into services. A simple, very understandable indicator is the increase in the share of furniture purchased with the assembly at once. This is an additional service and quite expensive. Its share has become higher, says the expert. Wildberries, in his opinion, launches the service at a good time, when in general services are more in demand than goods. At the same time, Virin stipulates that the market of services is much riskier than the market of goods and similar services have failed many.