Marketplaces promised small businesses fair rules of the game

SME corporation (KMSP; operator of programs to support small and medium-sized businesses) and the largest Russian marketplaces agreed to develop systemic rules for working in the online commerce market and measures to support small businesses in this area, a representative of the development institute said. The multilateral memorandum was signed by Sergey Belyakov, Managing Director of Ozon, Sergey Malyshev, General Director of Marketplace LLC (Sbermegamarket), and Tatiana Bakalchuk, General Director of Wildberries, and Director of Public RelationsYandex Market” Dmitry Rusakov and General Director of KMSP Alexander Isaevich.

The document says that marketplaces undertake to work on the basis of the “presumption of financial integrity” of their partners among SMEs, apply the principles of proportionality of mutual responsibility, and also create favorable conditions for site participants, the representative of KMSP said.

In turn, it is planned to create a special section on the SME.RF digital platform for requests from sellers of marketplaces and points of issue of orders.

The Corporation will undertake the monitoring of each appeal in order to track their systemic nature and, together with Internet sites, promptly take response measures, as well as provide consulting and legal assistance in their interaction with marketplaces,” Isaevich explained.

A separate subject of discussion will be the most pressing issues of interaction between platforms and their participants: offers, fines and sanctions for non-compliance with the rules for working with marketplaces, the representative of KMSP clarified.

Marketplaces sign a memorandum with the authorities amid a scandal between Wildberries and marketplace participants. In mid-March, several pick-up point (PO) managers clashed with the site over fines for substitution of goods by customers, threatening to close the pick-up point. After the State Duma, as well as the Ministry of Labor, became interested in the situation, Wildberries announced the freezing of fines and the return of money to the accounts of the owners of the pickup point.

After the meeting of deputies with representatives of marketplaces, the State Duma announced the readiness of the latter to conclude agreements with PVZ on the principles, methods and technology of joint work.

Entrepreneurs have complained about site placement rules over the past years. The uncontrolled growth of digital ecosystems is fraught with discrimination against their current and potential users and pressure on the pricing policy of suppliers of goods to marketplaces, warned the association of small and medium-sized businesses Opora Rossii in 2021, Vedomosti wrote (the association then applied to the Ministry of Industry and Trade, the Ministry of Economy and the Central Bank ).

The conflict in Wildberries has intensified the discussion about the possible tightening of requirements for sites. Aleksey Kozhevnikov, CEO of ANO Digitalization and New Technologies, and a member of the commission of the Ministry of Industry and Trade on creating conditions for self-regulation in electronic commerce, proposed that the Ministry of Digital Transformation withdraw marketplaces from the regulation restricting antimonopoly control of accredited IT companies, Kommersant wrote. The Ministry of Digital Development decided that it was incorrect to withdraw marketplaces as IT companies from the scope of the decree, and issues in the relations of market participants “are successfully resolved by self-regulation.” The FAS agreed that it would be possible to consider removing antimonopoly control from the scope of the resolution. According to the agency, this will protect the rights of market participants, including small and medium-sized businesses and consumers.

The Association of Internet Trade Companies (AKIT), together with members of the commission under the Ministry of Industry and Trade, also planned to develop standards for interaction between marketplaces and owners of pick-up points (POPs).

Product aggregators can delay the transfer of payment for goods and restrict access to sales reports, which “leads to forced “crediting” by the supplier of marketplace activities,” the Ministry of Industry and Trade reported at the time about business complaints in a mailing to the largest marketplaces and associations in the field of e-commerce. They can increase the commission without notifying suppliers, unilaterally change the offer and terms of acceptance and storage of goods, and even sell counterfeit goods on their sites, the letter says. On peak days, customer support may not respond to a request for up to three days, and some issues are resolved for up to several months. Marketplaces also dictate the terms of promotions and discounts to sellers. “The quality of goods is not among the priorities for getting into the top offers,” the document of the Ministry of Industry and Trade said.

The Ministry of Economics records an active growth in the number of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) being created in the field of e-commerce, Deputy Economic Development Minister Tatyana Ilyushnikova reported in March in an interview with Vedomosti (https://www.vedomosti.ru/economics/characters/2023/03 /14/966327-tatyana-ilyushnikova-novaya-suschnost).

The number of SMEs that registered their business in this area increased 13 times from 2019 to 2022 – from 9,105 to 117,844, the Ministry of Economy reported. We are talking about the number of companies (including individual entrepreneurs) operating according to the all-Russian classifier of types of economic activity “Retail trade by mail or via the Internet information and communication network”.

The development of this sector raises the issue of regulating electronic commerce, but so far it may be limited to voluntary agreements, Ilyushnikova pointed out. It is important to go to the regulation “evolutionary” so that it does not create problems for either platforms or suppliers, the Deputy Minister noted.