Drone attacks on Wildberries fuel price hikes across Russian online retailers
Photo: footage of Wildberries warehouses after the attack (Getty Images)
After drone strikes on the warehouses of the Russian marketplace Wildberries, prices for goods on such platforms in Russia rose by 10–30%, and delivery times increased severalfold, writes The Moscow Times, citing sellers and buyers.
Price increases
According to one entrepreneur who both sells and buys goods on Wildberries, certain items rose in price by almost a third in just a few days.
"I'm looking at the items that were in my cart. Last week I ordered them for 1,600 rubles, and now they're already 2,100. They jumped by 30%," the woman said.
Sellers also report price increases of 3–30%, although they assure that they themselves did not revise the cost of goods. According to them, the price increase is related to the reduction in discounts the marketplace had previously offered.
Delivery problems
In addition to the above, logistics issues have arisen after the attacks. Whereas previously delivery took 2–4 days, in many cases the timeframes have now increased to nearly ten days. A number of pickup points are also reporting a shortage of new arrivals.
A similar situation is observed on the Ozon marketplace. Although its logistics infrastructure did not suffer significant damage, sellers have also noticed a reduction in discounts and rising prices.
"As usual in such cases, WB's main competitors follow its significant steps. We can see that discounts on Ozon have also been cut," said a seller who works on both marketplaces.
Another interlocutor of the publication noted that Ozon has substantially reduced its own discounts, resulting in the commission for sellers in certain product categories, particularly clothing and footwear, exceeding 60%.
At the same time, Wildberries entrepreneurs are dissatisfied with the compensation for goods that were destroyed in the fires. Despite the company's statements about the completion of the second stage of payments for 175,000 sellers, they claim that the amounts received cover only a small fraction of the value of the lost goods.
Attacks on Wildberries warehouses
Earlier, it was reported that Ukrainian strikes on Wildberries resulted in the platform losing at least 10% of its warehouse capacity.
This has led to disruptions in the marketplace's operations and losses for tens of thousands of sellers. The company stated that it would take at least 30 days to assess the scale of the damage, after which compensation payments to owners of damaged goods would begin.
RBC-Ukraine recently wrote, citing sources, about why Ukraine struck Wildberries warehouses in Russia.
