FAS issued a warning Ozon and Wildberries for discounts on goods without the consent of sellers

The Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) requires Ozon (moex: Ozon) and Wildberries to publish and justify the internal mechanisms of auto action, providing discounts at the expense of the seller for goods with poor turnover. The service also checks the installation of discounts at the expense of the marketplaces themselves, which, in turn, leads to artificial dumping of sites. The government has connected to the resolution of the issue: in particular, it is discussed the proposal to oblige the marketplaces to notify sellers for 14 days about the holding of the action and receive their consent.

“Kommersant” got acquainted with the answer to the FAS to the complaint of RATEK (Association of Trade Companies and Productors of Electric and Computer Technology), on the issue of setting on the goods of sellers. Sellers complained to the FAS on Ozon and Wildberries that they include low -wing goods in the action at the expense of the seller without a seller (see Kommersant on November 5, 2024). In response to this, the service issued a warning to both marketplaces: Ozon and Wildberries should provide the sellers with “transparent and understandable mechanisms of shares,” Kommersant was told to the FAS, adding that if there are grounds, the service will initiate cases of violation of antimonopoly legislation.

However, about the second complaint about marketplaces by RATEK on the use of automatic discounts at the expense of the marketplaces themselves, the service is still analyzing. “The FAS is studying this practice for compliance with the requirements of antimonopoly legislation, to talk about raising prices by marketplaces to an economically justified level prematurely,” the service said.

In the apparatus of Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Grigorenko, who oversees the bill “On the Platform economy”, it was said that one of his articles “is completely devoted to regulating the process of providing discounts on goods, work and services”. So, a decrease in the price of the seller’s goods will be allowed, provided that the platform operator will send a notification to the seller about the intention to reduce the price of the goods no later than 14 days before the start of the promotion and receive consent. “It is assumed that the procedure will be mandatory in the event that the marketplace wants to reduce the price of the goods at the expense of the seller, and if at his own expense,” the apparatus said.

The representative of the RATEK believes that measures proposed, in particular, by the bill are insufficient. “The total volume of resources that marketplaces can allocate for discounts is not limited, so they will continue to maintain monopolously low prices for goods, which is prohibited from retail chains,” he says, adding that it is necessary to indicate a threshold for marketplaces in the region of 10%.

The proposal of RATEK, in fact, boils down to the requirement to set equally high prices for mass demand in all sales channels – hardly such an offer can contribute to the development of competition, they say Wildberries & Russ. The seller itself determines the pricing on the marketplace, and investments by Wildberries allow you to make goods more accessible to the buyer. “This increases demand and helps singers increase sales,” they think there. Ozon did not answer Kommersant.

After indicating the FAS, there should not be tangible changes in pricing, said Nikolai Fedyaev, director of the Marvel-Distribution E-commerce department. “The further situation will depend on the strategies selected by the marketplaces: the mechanisms for the implementation of the price policy they need remain with them,” he emphasizes. However, the head of the Mosklad company Askar Rakhimberdiev believes that the ban on dumping for marketplaces will directly affect the cost of goods: “Without artificial underestimation, they will increase and leve on average in the market.”

The sites work in conditions of rigid competition and try to offer some of the most attractive prices in the market, explains Evgeny Kuzmenko, director of the OCS electronic commerce department. According to him, for this, marketplaces use the mechanisms of pricing, which include co -investment, various types of discounts and so on: “For example, in the category of electronics and household appliances, co -investing on average is 10–20%.” According to him, attempts to influence the price setting mechanism will lead to the appearance of new “tactics”, instead of co -investment, cashback or special promotional codes may appear, which are automatically affixed in the buyer basket.

When entering a discount on the discounts at the expense of sellers from the buyer himself, nothing will change, but marketplaces, due to the lack of earnings at such discounts, may begin to change the algorithms of advertising on the platform, making it more expensive for the seller, the founder of the Scholchev agency Evgeny Sholchev warns.

Timofei Kornev, Daria Andrianova