Margarita Evstigneeva, president of Russia’s Association of Digital Platforms, says some online sellers lost up to 95 percent of their inventory when Ukrainian drones hit marketplace warehouses. The association has now written to Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin asking for help.
Its members include Ozon, Yandex, Avito, Kuper and Wildberries. The letter asks for non-repayable federal aid for affected sellers, with the amount set by actual losses and the size of each company’s operations. It also asks for a deferral or installment plan of at least six months on taxes and mandatory payments, and for cancellation of penalties and late fees that piled up while normal operations were disrupted. The total could reach hundreds of billions of rubles, according to reports.
Counting the losses
Data Insight puts Wildberries’ direct warehouse losses at 147 billion to 223 billion rubles. Add demolition, debris removal and site restoration and the figure could reach 278 billion. The value of seller goods lost in the warehouses is estimated at 445 billion to 507 billion rubles.
The Association of Product Suppliers to Electronic Marketplaces estimates seller losses at 600 to 700 billion rubles. It says total damage could approach 1 trillion rubles, about $12 billion.
Evstigneeva said Wildberries has paid small sellers an average of 2,000 to 30,000 rubles. That, she said, did not cover even 20 percent of their losses.
Cash flow strain
Wildberries reportedly saw revenue fall after the strikes, and sellers describe widespread delays in payment for goods already sold. Its subsidiary WB Bank has reportedly begun raising money from retail customers through short-term deposits paying more than 14 percent a year. All of Wildberries’ major warehouses were reported out of operation, taking out roughly one-third of its storage capacity.
Whether the aid will come is unclear. A source close to the Kremlin called the situation at Wildberries a “serious blow” to the economy and said there was not enough money to cover sellers’ losses. “There will be a wave of bankruptcies,” the source said. “No one has that much money to support the sellers.”
