Anatoly Kostyrev about crisis communication Wildberries

The largest player in the Russian online trading market, Wildberries, known for conflicts with counterparties, changed its rhetoric after a fire in a warehouse complex in Shushary near St. Petersburg. A company message appeared on social networks in which Wildberries expresses gratitude to sellers for their understanding in difficult times, reports that some of them offer not to compensate for goods lost in a fire, and explains how you can refuse compensation or part of it.

According to my interlocutor among the sellers, the message was published by Wildberries on the evening of January 15 and was met with laughter among the entrepreneurs working on the site. According to my interlocutor, Wildberries sellers are only interested in profit, they are ready to trade at a disadvantage only in the hope of profit in the future, and “charitable” actions in favor of the company cause them bewilderment, especially since the goods must be insured.

According to one of the industry interlocutors, Wildberries’ appeal could be an attempt to “test” the market. And two more sources believe that the initiative could have come from someone from top management, bypassing traditional approvals, which is likely due to the increase in workload after the fire. In any case, the reaction can hardly be called positive. “How did you help Wildberries and Tatyana (Bakalchuk, founder of the site, whose fortune Forbes estimates at $8.8 billion— “Ъ”) in these difficult times? — the Telegram channel “Okoloriteil” sneers.

Wildberries, which said the day before that half of the owners of goods in the warehouse in Shushary received the first compensation, on January 16 said that they had received several hundred requests with a desire to voluntarily refuse payments, and proposed to separate such requests into a separate category for recording. As Wildberries emphasize, the company will nevertheless pay compensation to all sellers whose goods were lost in the fire.

Large businesses often try to get support from partners and clients in difficult times. At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, airlines introduced certificates for future flights as compensation for canceled flights, and tour operators then managed to obtain a deferment of obligations. But resolving these issues required the intervention of regulators and dragged on for years. Wildberries, on the other hand, should not count on government support, and the site’s sellers are unlikely to be ready for compromise, which is clearly evident from the strikes that dissatisfied partners staged at the company’s offices for various reasons. My interlocutors have no doubt that there will be people dissatisfied with Wildberries compensation.