Kristina draws closed the purple curtain of the changing room at her nearest Wildberries location, emerging moments later to twirl in a black dress with the label still attached. But the 42-year-old housewife is not at one of Moscow’s department stores. Rather she is at the local branch of a Russian e-commerce giant whose steady rise to the top was built largely on physical locations uncharacteristic of a leading online retailer. Founded in 2004 by a teacher on maternity leave, Wildberries carved a lucrative niche by allowing customers to try out their orders at pick-up points and pay only for items they take home. “I haven’t decided yet what to keep,” says Kristina, eyeing the dress in a mirror at the collection point. At this location in central Moscow, a steady stream of customers enter, flash a code on their phones to receive packages from an attendant and duck into changing booths. The system has made Wildberries Russia’s e-commerce leader in sales and pushed it into the European market. Even though Russia’s economy has been sluggish in recent years, e-commerce is booming. Boosted by the coronavirus pandemic, Wildberries’ sales grew 74 per cent to $6 billion (€5.1bn) last...