Sokolov Case Study

How automation allowed one of Russia's largest jewelry brands to expand its product range and increase sales on Wildberries

Company SOKOLOV is one of the leaders in the Russian jewelry market, renowned for its wide product range and high quality. The brand actively collaborates with major Russian and international marketplaces, which account for up to 30% of turnover, with Wildberries playing a significant role among them. We spoke with Dmitry Bashinsky, Head of the Marketplace Integration Group at SOKOLOV, to share the company’s experience.

Integration Goals

Why SOKOLOV Needed API Integration

Until 2022, the company sold on Wildberries exclusively under the FBW model. This limited its ability to expand the product range, as jewelry items often exist in single units and storing them in Wildberries warehouses is not economically feasible.

Key Integration Objectives:

Expand the product range without maintaining large inventories in Wildberries warehouses

Create a fully automated order processing workflow without manual operations

Increase sales volume by effectively leveraging Wildberries’ capabilities

Preparation for Integration

Starting Point

The integration began by setting the primary goal: implement FBS sales and seamlessly incorporate this new channel into the company’s existing architecture.

Integration Priorities:

Minimize manual operations, including among operators

Ensure accurate synchronization of stock and orders

Deliver high reliability and system performance

Implementation Phases and Technical Solutions

How Integration Work Was Organized

The entire integration took about two weeks. Two developers simultaneously implemented modules for handling orders and products, and after launch, one specialist took over integration support.

Technical Solutions Used:

The 1C-based «Jewelry Trading House» program was selected for its ability to configure centralized management, as it already underpinned the company’s core business processes: accounting, inventory, and sales.
The system’s modular architecture enabled rapid changes without disrupting other workflows.
A centralized integration framework with all marketplaces provided a unified and user-friendly management interface.

> «The modular 1C architecture allowed us to add new marketplaces without rewriting the core system»

Dmitry Bashinsky, Head of Integration

Overcoming Challenges

What Challenges Arose During the Integration?

The main challenge was mastering the WB API documentation. This required close collaboration with technical support and testing the integration under real-world conditions.

Since testing was conducted on live data, there were occasional uncontrolled sell-outs due to misconfigured prices and discounts: on one occasion, a 90% discount was applied to a product, resulting in the rapid sell-through of all available stock. Thanks to the modular architecture, we adjusted processes to prevent such incidents going forward.

Automation and Optimization

What Was Automated?

Through the WB API, we implemented a multi-level order verification process before packaging: checking marking registrations, ensuring orders were not canceled, and adding orders to shipments. This minimized errors and improved order accuracy—if a discrepancy is detected, the order either remains in the queue or is returned to the warehouse.

Pricing workflows were also overhauled: all changes are automatically and centrally updated across all platforms, with managers handling only the discounts.

Additionally, inventory levels were automated, synchronizing data across all platforms and segments (including wholesale channels).

As a result, leveraging the WB API, SOKOLOV fully automated:

Order receipt and processing
Synchronization of up-to-date stock levels
Product price management
Generation and integration of financial and analytical reports
Automated customer review responses using artificial intelligence
A unified data repository and access key management for all integrated marketplaces

> «All processes related to the order lifecycle, from receipt to shipment, are fully automated via the WB API. We do not use any additional technical solutions or workarounds—the standard functions of the WB API are sufficient to achieve our goals.»

Dmitry Bashinsky

API Methods Used and Documentation Sections

Key WB API Methods in the SOKOLOV Integration

A table of the key WB API methods used by SOKOLOV. For more details on these methods, see the official WB API documentation.

Integration Results

How Did the Company Change After the API Integration?

Assortment Expansion: over 10 000 new SKUs were added to Wildberries without increasing operational workload.
Sales Growth: marketplace sales tripled in 2023 and continued to grow in 2024.
Operational Efficiency: order processing speed and accuracy improved significantly, with optimized inventory and pricing management.
Analytics Convenience: report preparation was automated, enabling managers to respond more quickly to market changes.

Although the internal workload for employees did not change in scale, process automation allowed the company to handle increased volumes without expanding its staff.

In the current setup, all access keys, logins, passwords, and tokens for various marketplaces are stored centrally. This eliminates the need to track information across multiple systems, significantly simplifying maintenance and data updates.

A unified interaction framework for any marketplace API has been established: most settings are managed through a clear and simple user interface, without requiring additional code changes. This speeds up and streamlines the integration of new services and platforms.

The system implements full logging of all API calls, ensuring process transparency and enabling quick response to any deviations or errors.

The company also developed a universal interface for managing product listings, reviews, and responses across all platforms, making daily tasks easier for managers and analysts.

Future Plans

How Does the Company Plan to Evolve the Integration?

SOKOLOV continues to enhance the platform and plans to add unified management of orders, inventory, and pricing to further streamline operations and automate marketplace workflows. Special focus will be placed on bulk editing of product listings and simultaneous photo updates.

Moreover, SOKOLOV is prepared to launch on new platforms as well: the configuration architecture is designed to require no code modifications, so integrating new marketplaces can be done quickly and easily—users access the familiar interactive interface and need no additional training. This is further supported by the extensive expertise that Dmitry’s integration team has developed.

Unexpected Insights

What Additional Benefits Did the Company Gain?

Analytics Platform. One of the unexpected positive outcomes Dmitry highlights is the creation of a unified analytics platform that allowed the company to better track trends and swiftly adjust its sales strategy. Centralized management also significantly increased agility and responsiveness to market changes.

Review Response Automation. The use of ChatGPT to generate templated and adaptive responses to reviews reduced the contact center’s workload and improved the average response rating.

Recommendations and Advice

What Can Other Companies Learn From This?

Maximize automation when integrating with marketplaces to ensure business scalability.
Be prepared to quickly adapt to platform changes and updates.
Centralize management of all sales channels in a single solution to improve transparency and efficiency.

Conclusion

Thanks to the WB API integration, SOKOLOV was able not only to significantly expand its assortment and increase sales but also to greatly enhance the efficiency of internal processes, laying a solid foundation for further business growth and development.