Not a single e-commerce company closed in Ukraine in Q3 2025—the first quarter without closures since Russia’s full-scale invasion began.
Meanwhile, 48 new firms opened, according to the analytics platform YouControl.Market. The contrast with earlier this year is stark: three companies shut down in Q1, two more in Q2. By summer, the bleeding stopped.
“Lines at parcel lockers and couriers working non-stop delivering holiday gifts are the best proof that Ukraine’s e-commerce market is alive as ever.”
Online retail has become one of the few sectors that can expand in an economy facing a labor shortage. Manufacturing contracts. 83% of Ukrainian companies report staff shortages. But e-commerce needs fewer hands than physical stores—and customers can order from home even during air raids.
“Lines at parcel lockers and couriers working non-stop delivering holiday gifts are the best proof that Ukraine’s e-commerce market is alive as ever,” YouControl analysts noted.
What Ukrainians are buying
The top 10 online retailers generated nearly $925 million in revenue during the first nine months of 2025. Three of them sell pet supplies—Pethouse, E-Zoo and Petslike. Cosmetics retailer Makeup ranked third with $81 million in revenue.
Books also sell. Family Leisure Club and Yakaboo, two online booksellers, both made the top 10.
One giant dominates
Rozetka and its retail arm, OTK Europlus, together captured 76% of the top-10 revenue—roughly $700 million. The marketplace operates 549 stores in 166 cities as of August 2025—up from 523 at the end of 2024. It opened 33 new locations in the first half of 2025 alone, including in front-line cities such as Kramatorsk, just 20 kilometers from the front lines.
The top sellers at those front-line stores: cat food, coffee, and tea.
“Despite constant danger, shelling, fear, they continue to live, to love, and judging by sales reports—even make preserves,” founder Vladyslav Chechotkin wrote when opening the store in August 2023. “We wanted to support them. We wanted to be there.”
The top sellers at those front-line stores: cat food, coffee, and tea.
The female-led boom
The e-commerce surge fits a broader pattern: women now register 61% of new businesses in Ukraine, up from 49% before the invasion. With men mobilized or abroad, women have built the wartime small business economy largely on their own.
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New sole proprietor registrations in online retail jumped 62% year-on-year in the first nine months of 2025. The sector now counts 77,400 active entrepreneurs and 3,173 companies.
Yet even Donetsk Oblast, under constant shelling, retains 46 registered online retailers.
Geographically, Kyiv hosts 52% of all e-commerce companies—1,656 firms. The capital’s dominance grew during the war as businesses relocated from eastern and southern regions.
Yet even Donetsk Oblast, under constant shelling, retains 46 registered online retailers serving customers in government-controlled cities like Kramatorsk and Sloviansk.
The ceiling remains
The e-commerce boom doesn’t mean Ukraine’s economy is recovering. GDP growth is capped at roughly 2% regardless of Western support. The workforce has shrunk by a quarter since 2021. Employers posted 427,000 job openings in 2025; only 63% were filled.
Online retail can grow within those constraints—a business model suited to a country where physical infrastructure gets bombed and workers are scarce.
