The popular store “Player.ru” has suspended its operations
One of the oldest online stores selling various household appliances, Pleer.ru, has suddenly stopped working. The site is still active, but an announcement has appeared on it: “Due to technical reasons, the store and customer support department are not working!” Buyers also complain that the customer support department is not working either.
At the same time, according to specialized publications, resumes of a number of the company’s employees appeared on job search websites. Allegedly, they quit “in one day.”
How Player.ru came into being
The site appeared in 2001. It was created by a businessman Alexey Konyshev for sale, purchase or exchange of musical electronics: receivers, players, various accessories for them of famous brands. It is known that the 17-year-old boy together with his father by that time traded such hardware at one of the capital’s markets.
A little over ten years later, Forbes magazine included Pleer.ru in the rating of the most expensive companies in RuNet with revenue of 60 million dollars. According to the results of 2016, the retailer entered the top 100 largest online stores according to Data Insight and was in 88th place with revenue from online sales of almost 1.3 billion rubles.
The site enjoyed great popularity among buyers due to its extremely low prices, which a number of market experts then considered lower than purchasing prices. This practice led to multiple attacks on Pleer.ru from competitors, who accused the store of unfair competition and smuggling. There were rumors that Konyshev was only the face of the company, and the real owners were supposedly somewhere in the vertical of power.
Why Player.ru was closed before
Throughout its history, the scandalous store has gotten into trouble more than once. Back in the spring of 2013, representatives of the Ministry of Internal Affairs arrived at the office near the Avtozavodskaya metro station. The police presented a search warrant and went to the storage facilities. According to one version, they were looking for 70 iPhone smartphones stolen from an Apple brand store at the end of 2012.
In 2014, the Association of Internet Trade Companies (AKIT) found the online store “Player.ru” to be inconsistent with “AKIT consumer service standards.” During a test purchase, it discovered, in particular, that the “Player.ru” website did not contain information about return policies and specific delivery times.
In 2018, the platform suspended operations as a result of an inspection conducted by the Russian FSB. At that time, searches were conducted in the store in Moscow, and law enforcement officers seized accompanying documents for goods and electronics. The events took place after the public “exposure” of “Player.ru” by the co-owner of the DNS chain of stores, Dmitry Alekseev. He accused the competitor of “money laundering and contraband import of goods” schemes.
In 2019, the store’s operations were suspended by the Savelovsky District Court after a joint inspection by the Federal Tax Service and the Federal Security Service. At that time, the website’s legal entity, Aleko T LLC, was suspected of fraud with checks: the company allegedly passed more than 1 million rubles past the cash register from March 2018 to January 2019.
Which companies managed Player.ru?
“Sunrise”
“Player.ru” is a company whose main gimmick, it seems, was the regular change of legal entities that managed the platform. Perhaps this practice was what led to regular troubles with inspections and courts.
The last legal entity on whose behalf the platform operated was Voskhod LLC, established in 2021. At that time, the company acquired the rights to the PLEER trademark, and the new entity immediately began to generate profit: in the first year, it brought in just under 1 billion rubles in revenue, and in 2022 and 2023, it was already more than 3 billion.
Its sole owner and CEO is Artem KobzarAt the same time, he does not give the impression of being a business shark: Voskhod is the only enterprise in his entrepreneurial career.
The top manager himself lives in Domodedovo and, at least recently, drove a Korean business-class sedan KIA Optima. Judging by his activity in Telegram chats, the man has recently been actively interested in issues of relocation and obtaining a residence permit in other countries, as well as cryptocurrency transactions.
“Aleko T”
Another company that operated the store before Voskhod was Aleko T, founded in April 2017, apparently by the mother of the founder of Player.ru. Tatyana Konysheva.
This company owned the domain pleer.ru, as well as the intellectual property rights – the PLEER trademark. Just a year after its foundation, Aleko T demonstrated revenue comparable to Pleer.ru – 4.1 billion rubles. In 2019, it fell to 1.36 billion, and by the end of the year, the company’s accounts were already minus 1.2 billion rubles. This metamorphosis occurred just after the ruling of the Savelovsky District Court. Then – in 2020 – the owner changed, and the company itself has not shown any signs of life since then.
By the way, shortly before the Pleer.ru website stopped working, on September 4 of this year, the Federal Tax Service decided to liquidate the company that had stopped submitting reports to the tax authority.
How the founders of “Player.ru” live
Alexey Konyshev is only 40 years old and is not a public figure. It is known that the possible owner of a billion-dollar business is devout and has actively helped monasteries and church organizations. Life.ru found out that the founder of the business empire is still registered with his mother in an ordinary panel high-rise building in the capital’s Lianozovo district.
A prestigious BMW X7 crossover with a complicated number plate, taken from the old Mercedes of Tatyana Konysheva’s mother, was registered to him. In addition to it, the businessman owned a premium Acura MDX crossover and a large Honda Pilot SUV. In addition, the family used a “land yacht” – a luxury Mercedes-Benz Viano minivan.
Officially, in Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism), Konyshev is now the owner of the company “Abyssal”, which is engaged in real estate transactions. The legal address of the company is located in the building next to the office of “Player.ru”. In 2023, with revenue of 2.3 million rubles, 11 million appeared in the company’s accounts.
In addition, the businessman has an individual entrepreneur registered with activities related to agriculture. He is also listed as the chairman of the board of the dacha cooperative “U Gremyachih Klyuchi” in the Vladimir region.
By the way, it is possible that Alexey Konyshev is now in Kazakhstan – recently his full namesake with the same date of birth received a local tax identification number and registered with a medical institution there.
As for Tatyana Konysheva, judging by the archives of the FSSP, last year the woman owed about 150 thousand rubles. Small debts of several tens of thousands of rubles had arisen before. By the way, Tatyana Konysheva used modest cars: in her garage there was a budget Nsan Terrano, a GAZ-Sobol and a Chevrolet Aveo sedan. Of the large SUVs, she only used an Nsan Pathfinder.