Just like other young Russian women, Nataly loves online shopping but she is a fan of Chinese e-commerce website, Taobao.

"Taobao [a popular online shopping platform in China] enjoys great popularity in Russia," Nataly said, though she lives in Moscow, which is thousands of kilometers away from China.

Many Russians have become keen on buying Chinese goods online.

Marina Kobylenko Viktorovna, 34, likes to shop on Taobao and has been doing so for five years. She buys clothes, bags, toys and electronic goods nearly every month.

"Chinese commodities are inexpensive and of good quality. All I have to do is sit in front of a computer, find what I want and click," she said.

"Every month there are around 18 orders from Russia," a staff member at a Taobao glassware store told the Global Times.

E-commerce in Russia has flourished in recent years, which provides great opportunity for e-commerce giants, such as Amazon, eBay and China's Alibaba Group (the parent company of Taobao). According to Moscow's Data Insight, online shopping in Russia increased 26 percent last year, to 510 billion rubles ($14.3 billion), and could double by 2015.

"In the past few years, both orders and trading volume [through Alibaba's sales platforms] have kept increasing," Chu Jia, a public relations manager at Alibaba, told the Global Times, but didn't give details about the figures.

However, another public relations manager at the company, Xiao Haikun, earlier told the Xinhua News Agency that Taobao data showed about $2 million worth of goods were sent to Russia in February last year, and the figure doubled in May.

According to Xiao, Russians, especially young people, have increasingly been buying goods from China.

"Clothes, shoes, bags, cellphones, tablets and household items are popular with Russian shoppers," Xiao said, noting that the light-goods industry in Russia is not well-developed, while China has many products with price advantages.

Online shopping agents

Despite the enthusiasm of Russians for buying Chinese goods online, the language barrier, payment methods and logistics are obstacles to purchasing on Taobao.

Online shopping agents have emerged to bypass these problems. They assist Russian shoppers in buying goods online and profit from service fees or price differences. Customers do not have to worry about cross-border payment or logistics.

"Because of problems with the payment of goods, we are forced to overpay for the services of numerous intermediaries," Nataly complains. "Western Union is too expensive for Russia and bank transfers are not always easy."

"It is not convenient for Russians to visit the website and shop on Taobao directly," a Chinese agent who helps Russian consumers buy goods on Taobao, told the Global Times. But he said that Chinese goods are much cheaper, "For example, normally a coat in Russia costs 3,000 rubles ($84.4) but only 150 yuan ($24.1) in China."

The Chinese agent said the goods would be delivered to Russian consumers in 10 to 15 days, while the quickest way could be three days but the fees would be higher.

Many Russians also operate as shopping agents, buying online from China at low prices and selling at a higher price in Russia.

"Orders from Russia are usually bulk and they use a purchasing agent in China and pay in cash," said the Taobao glassware store staff member, suggesting these Russian clients are intermediary agents.

Imitation abounds

Meanwhile, a popular website called Rutaobao runs in Russia, which copies information from Chinese Taobao stores. The goods pictured and store styles are all the same as Chinese ones, but the product information has been translated into Russian and prices are displayed in US dollars.

Upon opening the website of the Rutaobao, although the language of the website is mainly Russian, the Chinese digital watermarks on goods could easily be seen.

"I should have a Russian online store," a Chinese Taobao store owner said on a Web forum for Taobao shopkeepers. The store owner said he found a Russian store that is nearly all the same as his on the Rutaobao website, but he was not involved in it. "It is selling goods from my store, but who is running it?"

A Global Times reporter scanned a store page on Rutaobao. Following the Chinese watermark on one product picture, the reporter tracked down the Chinese store on Taobao that sells ornaments. The pictures on the Russian store are almost identical to the Chinese Taobao store and the only marked difference is that the price is much higher. When the Global Times reporter verified with the Chinese Taobao store, staff told the Global Times that said they didn't have a Russian-language version store.

"Taobao is a large retailer network mainly targeting Chinese consumers and the language of the website is Chinese and currently there is still no Russian version developed [by our company],"Chu said. "But we have established AliExpress in 2010, which is a trading platform for foreign consumers."

"Russia is one of the main markets of AliExpress and there has been a specific team working for improving the platform functions and services that cater to Russian consumers."

Chu said that the team tries to solve the payment and logistic problems, extending cooperation with local payment and logistics providers.

Gao Yiqun contributed to this story