The owners of the points of issue of orders (PVZ) staged a demarche, the management of the marketplace first “went on the defensive”, and then responded. Answered harshly.
It all started with the fact that on March 3, Wildberries introduced a new system of fines. According to the new rules, if buyers return goods to the warehouse due to defects or substitutions, the owner of the pickup point must pay for this. According to Wildberries, according to the results of the analysis, their internal algorithm concluded that in 98% of cases of substitution or damage to goods, employees of the points of issue are to blame.
At the same time, the marketplace did not offer any mechanisms to challenge these fines. And the Network has already published screenshots of a fine of more than half a billion rubles.
Entrepreneurs rebelled and began to close their outlets in protest. It is not known how many PVZ owners take part in this action. The organizers said that almost half of the distribution points across the country could close. It is impossible to verify this, but judging by the huge number of photos on the Web with announcements that the pickup point is temporarily closed, someone did it. Others, despite the huge number of claims against the site, remain on the marketplace. The position of such entrepreneurs was presented by the owner of one of the pickup points in the Moscow region:
“No one wants to run into penalties. My opinion: this item still brings me money, and closing, violating the contract itself is not very good. That’s why he and the contract, so that both parties fulfill their duties in the proper form. We have fulfilled our part of the contract and will continue to fulfill it, but we want the conditions to be revised. We are dissatisfied with a lot of things, we now do not have the opportunity to challenge the marriage and deductions that are already coming to the pickup point.”
On Tuesday, several dozens of pickup point owners gathered at the Wildberries central office demanding that the management come out and talk – but the doors were never opened to them. Wildberries answered differently – he introduced a new fine: 100 thousand rubles for the dissemination of “unreliable or inciting information to illegal actions.” In fact, the dissatisfied owners of the PVZ were threatened with a fine simply for participating in this action. And on Wednesday morning, March 15, telegram channels reported that the site began to fire employees who participated in the demarche and break off relations with partners who joined the boycott. Later, the company indirectly confirmed this, writes RBC:
“With “partners” who choose uncivilized forms of dialogue, threaten company representatives and attempt to disrupt the work of the office, cooperation will be suspended for security reasons. Several such points were closed, from which we export goods that belong to us and entrepreneurial sellers.
According to a number of experts, such a tough position of the Wildberries is partly understandable. Because there are many cases when the employees of the PVZ really replace the goods themselves or do not monitor what the buyers hand over to them, or one of them breaks something in the process of unpacking or storage, and then the goods are sent back as if nothing had happened to the warehouse. And why should the seller trading on Wildberries pay for this, and the platform itself should suffer?
Probably, the problem could be solved peacefully. For example, due to video recording of the moment of unpacking the goods in the pickup point: the wrong thing came or the marriage – and this can be seen – the pickup point is not to blame. The owner of the pickup point, Ilya, says:
“When each pick-up point opens, applies for activation, they are required to provide access to video cameras at the pick-up point, and there must be at least two of them. One is above the order pick-up table and the other is in the warehouse. The question is, why then did we spend a lot of money, buy all these cameras and give Wildberries all these accesses, if they don’t even want and can’t come in and see what’s really happening? Although we have everything for this. According to the terms of the offer, we store recordings from video cameras for at least 90 days.”
But a peaceful solution, as Alexander Ivanov, president of the National Distance Selling Association, says, is not the Wildberries style. According to him, this site knows how to solve problems quickly, but does not know how to do it gently:
“Wildberries have never behaved differently in their history. In any case, from the moment he, as they say, flooded. Wildberries are always in conflict, always. If suddenly someone does not know this, this is not a problem with Wildberries. On the other hand, Wildberries have such a strong side, which, in my opinion, is its main trump card, is the ability to make decisions very quickly and quickly execute what they take. This distinguishes them favorably from all the businesses I know, not only e-commerce. In this regard, they are great. How quickly they will be able to draw conclusions here, reorganize, react – we’ll see, I think that somehow they will emerge. But I repeat that the inability to resolve conflicts simply and humanly is their Achilles heel.
Leading position in the market helps Wildberries to conduct such a policy. Although, for example, in attracting new sellers in January of this year, Ozon overtook Wildberries for the first time in history and retained its leadership in February, as Kommersant wrote about. But there is also Yandex.Market, Sbermegamarket, Kazan Express…
But experts say that this was a conscious decision of the site – Wildberries introduced a commission for registering newcomers, not wanting to work with completely inexperienced sellers. However, in the case of the current conflict, it is not certain that the marketplace will have the last word. The community is already getting involved. The SME corporation is ready to act as intermediaries, says its CEO Alexander Isaevich:
“We are ready to act as a mediator, it is obvious that we need to sit down at the negotiating table and discuss the existing problems honestly and in partnership. No threats or blackmail. Obviously, and this is evidenced by the numbers, there is a multiple growth in online trading and the number of newly created SMEs in this area. Therefore, if the problem is not solved, then it will grow like a snowball. As for the situation of these people, everyone in the situation has approximately the same feelings: in fact, the owners of the PZ turn out to be extreme. That is, there is no question of any presumption of innocence. About legal assistance – we are ready to provide legal support and accompany, if necessary, in court.
The problem is also already being discussed in the State Duma (with the prospect of some legislative initiatives). And in the near future, the FAS and the Prosecutor General’s Office will express their position. So for now, everything that happens can only be called flowers. Let’s see what the berries will be.