Parcels are left outside the door – Kommersant FM

Foreign parcels may rise in price and get stuck at customs; they simply will not have time to be processed promptly. Representatives of the cross-border trade industry expressed this opinion in an interview with Kommersant FM. Earlier, Russian retailers, through the Association of Retail Trade Companies, appealed to the government with a request to reduce the threshold for duty-free online purchases five times, from €1 thousand to €200. What are Russian sellers trying to achieve? And what might such a decision mean for consumers? Aelita Kurmukova found out.

On April 1, the current duty-free limit of €1 thousand expires. This means that Russians will again transfer 15% of orders in foreign online stores to the treasury if the monthly purchase amount exceeds €200. We increased the threshold in 2022 temporarily in order to prevent a shortage of goods due to sanctions and to establish parallel imports.

And this tool fulfilled its task, says Igor Karavaev, Chairman of the Presidium of the Association of Retail Trade Companies. In addition, according to him, extending the current increased threshold would actually encourage foreign manufacturers to supply products to the territory of the EAEU without paying customs duties and without any after-sales service:

“A significant number of uncertified goods and goods without guarantees are entering the market, including without instructions and information in Russian. This creates unequal conditions for conscientious Russian retailers who fulfill obligations for certification and service of products on the domestic market.

Also, against the backdrop of a high duty-free import threshold, the risks of supplying low-quality, illegal and counterfeit goods increase.”

The Association of Retailers, which includes M-Video, Auchan, and X5 Group, has already been supported by the Federal Customs Service. Acting head of the department Ruslan Davydov spoke in favor of completely abolishing the threshold and emphasized that goods imported without duties hinder the development of domestic industry. But local manufacturers are not ready to completely replace the departed brands, as was stated at a meeting at the Ministry of Economic Development, Polina Shcherbinina, director of the legal department of CDEK.Shopping, told Kommersant FM:

“A question was asked to a representative of one of the Russian companies. He said that in the future we will launch our motherboards, but we don’t have them yet. There is no complete equipment or electronics that would be produced by our manufacturer. There is no competitive environment, the client goes and instead of a phone, so to speak, buys a shovel. So, in the end, our quality will drop and prices will rise.”

But if you look at the numbers, cross-border trade takes up less than 1% of the entire market: 400 billion rubles. based on the results of last year. In 2023, according to Kommersant FM interlocutors, Russians ordered 150 million parcels from abroad, and more than 5 billion within the country, and this does not include offline sales. The reduction of the duty-free limit was naturally opposed by marketplaces, which in a couple of years have established almost direct deliveries from foreign sellers, noted Fyodor Virin, a partner at the analytical company Data Insight:

“For example, Ozon is growing well in cross-border trade. Tomorrow other online stores and marketplaces will launch this. Logistics allows you to import anything – from furniture to electronics.

Of course, this is competition, a threat, because a consumer who is willing to wait three to four weeks, and sometimes a month and a half for a parcel, can receive the same computer or PlayStation from abroad with a 30% discount.”

The request of marketplaces to extend the threshold of €1 thousand was not supported by the Ministry of Finance, emphasizing that the reasons for this have been exhausted. The consolidated position of the authorities has not yet been announced, but it is already obvious that the consumer will end up overpaying, emphasized Andrei Karpov, Chairman of the Board of the Association of Retail Market Experts: “People spend large sums, as a rule, on goods that cannot be bought within the country. These can be spare parts for cars, household appliances, electronics, and shoes. Some money goes outside our country, and perhaps companies would like these funds to remain directly with them.”

But, according to the laws of the market, if local sellers have fewer competitors, then prices can be raised, as all local manufacturers have already done – from clothing to furniture.

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