Online trading platforms are doing everything to not respect consumer rights
Russian marketplaces have adopted the classic technique of all lawyers: “Deny everything.” Online platforms where you can buy anything — from a comb to a car — they deny that they are engaged in trade. “Soon it won’t even be a matter of airplanes,” they joke in the Federation Council, assessing the growth rate of marketplaces. Meanwhile, there are still no clear rules of the game for virtual hypermarkets.
Over the past five years, the marketplace market in Russia has grown by a record 12 times. This was reported at a round table in the Federation Council by the head of the Federal State Supervision Department for Consumer Rights Protection of Rospotrebnadzor Oleg Prusakov.
We noted that the share of citizens’ complaints in the trade segment exceeded the services sector,” said Oleg Prusakov. “At a certain stage, a transformation took place: when services began to actively develop, more complaints began to be received about this sector. And now we are back to the situation that was before. For the first time, consumer complaints in the trade sector exceeded the corresponding indicators in the services segment.
Complaints increased by 18% in 2023, reports Rospotrebnadzor. For the first time the department received more than 209 thousand requests with a minus sign for trading. The lion's share of these complaints — to online platforms and remote sale of goods.
The share of citizen requests in this market segment has increased 14 times, Prusakov emphasized.
Officials speak with some uncertainty about the connection between the growth of consumer complaints and the development of the online trading market. But the fact remains a fact — The pace here and there is galloping.
The department attributes the wave of negative sentiment among citizens to the fact that aggregators are generally free. At least from inspections. Not only is there a moratorium in the country, but virtual traders are also leaders in the IT market. This status gives them a pass to a special register, which works as a safe conduct from various kinds of auditors.
This affects the possibilities of influence and suppression of illegal actions, Oleg Prusakov complained. In turn, officials try to rely on the honesty of the owners of marketplaces: they say that large platforms are well-known and their reputation is dear to them.
Meanwhile, marketplaces do not value not only their reputation, but also their common sense they are not really pursuing.
Director of the Department for Development of Internal Trade of the Ministry of Industry and Trade Nikita Kuznetsov connects the dynamics of complaints against marketplaces with the fact that they themselves do not consider themselves trading platforms.
According to Kuznetsova, Internet aggregators position themselves as separate entities.
This is supposedly a special form of life, not trade, a representative of the Ministry of Industry and Trade explained the strange logic of the aggregator owners.
The department considers this approach manipulation.
— Marketplaces — This is not a new entity. This is a separate form of trading. 70 years ago there were no retail chains in the world. But when they appeared, no one had the idea to call them some new form of life. Although retail chains operate under completely different rules than regular stores,” noted Nikita Kuznetsov, “Now marketplaces say: we are some kind of digital platform.” Then the market — this is an asphalt platform, and the shopping center — concrete platform. We do not support this approach.
Another argument that aggregators are trying to push is that the marketplace — This is not one large virtual store, but a platform with many independent cells, in each of which an independent merchant sells his goods. But the site itself seems to have nothing to do with it.
Kuznetsov recalled: several years ago, a similar scam was carried out by offline retail chains. They tried to prove that they were not selling a product, but a shelf in the sales area on which this product lay. And not to the consumer, but to the supplier of this product. That is, supermerket — this not a store, but a kind of hostel for sausages, fresh-frozen chicken and bottles of soda.
— Legislation prohibited this scheme in relation to food. Chains began to buy goods from suppliers and sell them, explained a representative of the Ministry of Industry and Trade.
Meanwhile, marketplaces use the so-called limitless shelf principle. That is, the site is now not responsible for the goods and the seller. We need a new law to change this.
— Formally, the seller on the site — independent,” agrees Nikita Kuznetsov, “But the consumer buys goods on the site, pays through the site. 99% of consumers are not interested in who the legal seller is. The marketplace must be responsible for both the product and the seller.