Internet giant Yandex has launched a clothes shopping "aggregator," or Internet portal that gathers clothing goods information from multiple online stores and displays the items with photographs on a single website.
The site, an outgrowth of the Yandex.Market portal for home electronics, children's toys and other goods, appeared Tuesday with the web address Garderob.yandex.ru, a reference to the Russian word for "wardrobe."
The new website will compete with KupiVIP.ru, which aggregates 1,500 fashion brands and offers them at discounted prices on a single website to people registered with KupiVIP. Garderob doesn't require registration, but its participating clothing retailers do.
Other websites fighting for online clothes hunters include Ozon.ru and Wikimart.ru, both general e-commerce sites.
Yandex doesn't actually sell the clothes, as checkout and delivery are handled by the online stores.
Garderob addresses ones of the challenges of shopping here — comparing European, international and Russian clothing sizes — by using all three systems. Women looking to buy a sleeveless Mango dress can choose from extra small to extra large in the international system, 40 to 52 in the Russian system or 34 to 46 in the European one.
In addition to searching for items by size, shoppers can sort by store, designer, price, material, color or a combination of those.
Currently, the site aggregates online clothing stores in Russia and Ukraine, but Alexei Avdei, head of Yandex.Market, said at a news conference Tuesday that the service "will expand."
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