The Association of Jewelers proposed to the Ministry of Finance to ease the requirements for pick-up points of marketplace orders to stimulate trade

With jewelry sales declining, sellers are looking for new opportunities to restore the market. The industry association proposed to the Ministry of Finance to relax the requirements for pick-up points for marketplaces, which should stimulate the development of remote jewelry trading. In this segment, the share of online sales has already reached 19%. However, market participants are paying attention to other difficulties in interacting with Internet sites, including restrictions on working with certain warehouses and financial risks due to the loss of products during delivery.

At the disposal of Kommersant was a letter from the General Director of the Association of Jewelers Vadim Serov to the Ministry of Finance with a request to exclude mandatory registration in the state system in the field of control over the circulation of precious metals, stones and products (GIIS DMDC). It was established in 2021 to collect, store, process and provide information on the origin and circulation of precious metals, stones and products made from them. According to the law, pickup points, as well as offline stores of jewelry chains, must be connected to the GIIS DMDC.

The letter states that today the owners of the PVZ need to enter data on each fact of the circulation of jewelry with detailed information about the product. However, the association draws attention to the fact that the employees of the points of issue of orders cannot provide detailed information about the products without violating the consumer packaging, since the jewelry comes to them in a packaged form.

Due to the risk of falling under administrative liability for failure to comply with all requirements of the law, some partner pickup points may close, especially in remote and sparsely populated areas of the country, the association warns.

At the same time, the Association of Jewelers proposes to include duty-free shops in the GIIS DMDC. According to Mr. Serov, the absence of duty free points of sale in the system leads to serious technical difficulties. For example, when returning a product, the seller cannot take it into account in the GIIS DMDC and sell such jewelry in a store outside the duty-free zone or return it to the manufacturer.

The Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation confirmed the receipt of the letter to Kommersant, specifying that the proposals of the association are being worked out by the ministry.

Last year, due to a drop in demand, the jewelry market in monetary terms decreased by 9%, to 301 billion rubles, the Sokolov analytical center noted. According to Infoline, only four out of 11 large jewelry chains showed sales growth – these are Sokolov, Sunlight, 585 Zolotoy and the Moscow Jewelry Plant.

At the same time, online jewelry trading has recently shown a noticeable growth. According to Vadim Serov, by the end of 2022, the share of online sales reached 19% of the total volume of jewelry retail. In the first quarter of 2023, sales growth in the online channel amounted to 31% year-on-year, said Artem Sokolov, President of AKIT. The turnover of jewelry at Wildberries in January-April increased by 70% in annual terms, the marketplace reported.

Artem Sokolov believes that legislative restrictions can become a barrier to the development of the jewelry industry through online channels. Wildberries believe that the proposals of the Association of Jewelers will reduce the unnecessary burden on the business and increase the interest of entrepreneurs in selling jewelry through marketplaces.

According to the Sokolov analytical center, the share of online jewelry sales in 2023 may increase by 22% year-on-year. But despite the potential for further growth in jewelry sales through marketplaces, this sales channel for jewelry retailers still has a number of other limitations, points out Maxim Batalin, Deputy CEO for e-commerce at Adamas. According to him, for sellers of expensive jewelry, there are high risks of possible loss of products. In addition, he adds, not all marketplace warehouses work with jewelry, which lengthens the delivery time for orders even to some major cities.

Alina Savitskaya, Anatoly Kostyrev