Q1. Could you start by giving us a brief overview of your professional background, particularly focusing on your expertise in the industry?

I've spent more than 10 years building scalable marketplaces and AI-driven platforms across Europe and Central Asia, from consumer marketplaces with 60+ million monthly active users to B2B SaaS used by hundreds of merchants. My core expertise lies at the intersection of a deep understanding of customer experience and how it can drive marketplace growth, buyer experience, and seller sales experience. On the other hand, I led search and ranking at Unicorn Marketplace, built AI content moderation and trust systems at a global tech company, and usually I consult different companies and clients on how to build or transform a customer experience for it to start driving revenue, how to build a successful team, how to onboard people, and how to build learning and development systems. And also, on the technical side, my expertise is in consulting people and companies on how to develop search engines and product discovery for marketplaces, and how to prioritize a great customer experience, especially in the era of global personalization.

Q2. What has fundamentally changed in marketplace growth levers over the last 2–3 years—what worked earlier but no longer scales today?

E-commerce growth has shifted from traditional expansion to greater efficiency and diversification, not by adding more sellers or options, but by improving quality. Actually, what we see today is also the so-called alt e-commerce or re-commerce boom. Many consumers prefer to buy. Secondhand and recycling rather than new, especially among younger generations like Z and more and more younger Alphas, and so on. So ESG factors are really important today. Also, today's marketplace is investing more in AI to deliver more personalization and to search for and optimize pricing. In a nutshell, if earlier marketplaces grew only by increasing the number of sellers and buying traffic, today's growth comes from using existing traffic more effectively. We need to provide better search, better matching, better pricing, and more efficient seller tools. And there is an important role for retail media, social media, and recommerce.

Q3. How have seller expectations changed with rising competition, tighter margins, and AI-enabled tools?

Sellers now demand more partnership, more transparency, and more guidance, rather than just traffic. Some sellers, especially small businesses, are frustrated by complex commission structures and want to find new models like Begja, a no-commission marketplace where sellers can pay a flat fee and keep all their revenue. It's very important for smaller sellers who just started. The next thing is that, as soon as search discovery and ranking are clearer, they want a predictable ranking and an understanding of why and how listings are promoted, and why performance may not be as stable and may show different deviations. Next is increasing AI literacy and adoption in the different world markets. Sellers expect to need tools to optimize pricing, listings, and inventory using AI. And the last thing is that sellers increasingly see marketplaces as growth partners. So, in a nutshell, they want to understand why their products are visible to buyers or not, how ranking works, and how they could improve the performance of their items. And sellers also want clear rules, predictable algorithms, and transparent AI tools that provide guidance rather than raw analytics.

Q4. What’s the biggest under-invested area in marketplace CX right now—despite clear user signals?

Today, we see the gap across the customer journey. Many companies invest in front-end digital experience and AI tools, but they underestimate the importance of operational systems that could lead to delayed delivery, support backlogs, or abandoned carts. And marketplaces also optimize search, checkout, and support first, but user experience is a continuous journey. So when something goes wrong at any stage, if you don't consider this journey as a whole, it may lead users to have to research, recheck, and re-contact support. So that leads to high operational costs. And the last thing is that customers want transparent information about sellers, their ratings, and return policies, as well as assurance about the quality and accountability of the goods. In a nutshell, this area is an end-to-end experience. Companies must be focused not only on search and ads but also on the entire chain, including delivery, returns, support, and issue resolution, so users feel their issues can be resolved almost immediately.

Q5. Where does AI genuinely create defensible advantage in marketplaces today—and where is it already becoming table stakes?

Anyone understands that AI is table stakes today in recommendations and personalization, as well as in tools like chatbots, service automation, fraud detection, content moderation, and support. But a very small number of companies understand that proprietary transaction data and seller quality signals, combined with real-time behavioral metrics, in their ranking models yield better matches and higher gross merchandise value. The combination of dynamic pricing, inventory data, and algorithms reduces shipping costs and increases loyalty. Additionally, fast delivery remains a major differentiator in e-commerce, and AI has a real advantage in optimizing route planning, demand forecasting, and warehouse operations. But not many companies are ready to invest in these capabilities. And the last thing is that AI models continuously retrain on sellers' feedback, buyer preferences, and real-time signals, and the winners really embed AI into product strategy, making it hard for competitors to catch up. Marketplaces may be most successful when they use AI to improve quality, speed, and trust.

Q6. Where does ESR genuinely change marketplace outcomes, and where is it still treated as a checkbox?

ESR impacts visibility, fairness, compliance, and trust, and it may be a checkbox if it's limited to policy documents. Platforms must provide buyers with clear, trustworthy information about sellers and products, implement verification tools and specialized mechanisms, and promptly remove illegal or counterfeit content. And platforms, of course, must disclose the key parameters behind their ranking systems. These rules allow marketplaces to build explainability into their user interfaces and help sellers be more transparent and trustworthy with buyers. The next thing is about the legal risk of algorithmic discrimination. And legal analysis already warns that ranking algorithms can discriminate against minority-owned businesses, women, or any other factor if they are trained using biased data. So this is an important thing. Many marketplaces still view ESR as compliance paperwork rather than a fundamental principle. And when ESR lives only on paper and does not impact users or sellers, it becomes a checkbox.

Q7. If you were an investor looking at companies within the space, what critical question would you pose to their senior management?

If I were an investor, I would be interested in how the marketplace really understands his strengths and weaknesses. And I've asked which part of your marketplace creates a predictable cash flow and what could destroy it first. Because if we talk about three major factors, it's demand risk: you could lose your buyers if you show too many ads, your prices go up, or your UX gets very weird. The second thing is supply risk: your sellers may leave you when fees rise, when they don't see a clear ROI, or when they have other places. And the last, least manageable, and most difficult is a trust risk, like a silent killer. If your sellers and buyers stop trusting you as a platform, they don't trust your ranking or your rules, and they leave your platform without any questions or complaints. And this may create hidden churn and differences. As an investor, I will also care about trust because it may predict how a company understands its business.