|
The turbulent global market is pushing cross-border sellers to move towards multi-channel and multi-market layout. In recent years, in addition to the giants in Europe and the United States and the rising star in Southeast Asia, the Russian e-commerce market has also attracted a large number of Chinese sellers. However, since the beginning of this year, collecting payments from Russian local platforms seems to have become a major problem for Chinese sellers. It is learned that according to industry sources, the payment delays of Russian e-commerce platform Ozon have lasted for half a year . Since the end of March this year, Ozon has issued a number of notices about payment delays, indicating that this was mainly due to new banking regulations, which extended the fund processing time of domestic banks and affected the payment process. During this period, due to the delay in receiving the payment, there were rumors in the industry that Ozon had a financial crisis and was about to run away. It was not until June this year that Ozon launched a new payment method - GEP , and some sellers who were owed money finally received the platform's payment. According to feedback from the industry, as of October, although the vast majority of sellers had only received partial repayments, a few Ozon sellers had received 90% of their payments , thus avoiding the crisis of capital turnover difficulties. Compared with Ozon's increasingly normal payment collection situation, Wildberries' recent payment delay problem is more prominent. It is understood that at the end of May this year, Wildberries stopped repaying Chinese sellers without any notice, and gradually postponed the repayment time in the following five months. As of the end of September, according to sellers, Wildberries had owed more than 100 million yuan to thousands of sellers in China , and some individual sellers had been owed hundreds of thousands of yuan. As the payment is far from being paid, some Chinese sellers who have settled in Wildberries have filed complaints with the Commerce Bureaus of many places in October. Among them, the Shenzhen Commerce Bureau replied to the sellers that it has interviewed Ozon many times and is currently interviewing Wildberries , and suggested that sellers protect their rights through legal means, that is, "report to the police and file a case." As the incident develops, this situation may be taken seriously, accelerating the promotion of Wildberries' solution. ▲ The picture comes from the seller’s disclosure It is also worth mentioning that recently, industry sources said that Wildberries is testing access to a new payment system so that sellers can withdraw funds more efficiently. However, according to a small number of sellers who have been tested, the new payment system still shows "withdrawal failed" . As of press time, the payment delay problem of these two major Russian e-commerce platforms has not been completely resolved. Some industry insiders speculate that the payment delay problem is closely related to changes in the international business environment. In 2022, with the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, a huge market gap appeared in the Russian market due to sanctions from Europe and the United States. With the idea that "the bigger the storm, the more expensive the fish" , a large number of Chinese cross-border sellers flocked to this gold rush full of opportunities. According to customs data, in 2023, the scale of China's cross-border e-commerce exports to Russia reached 84.6 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 91%. Russia became China's fourth largest cross-border e-commerce export destination. Amid the cross-border gold rush in the Russian e-commerce market, Russian local platforms have also been occupied by Chinese sellers and are developing rapidly. It is understood that Ozon opened an office in Shenzhen in November 2022. In just one year, the number of Chinese sellers has soared. According to a report by Tochka Marketplaces, in the first quarter of 2024, the average income of sellers on the platform increased by 91% year-on-year, which is closely related to the participation of Chinese sellers. Public data shows that by the end of 2023, the number of Chinese sellers on Ozon has exceeded 100,000 , accounting for 20% of the total number of sellers on the platform. At the same time, Wildberries opened its doors to Chinese sellers in January 2024. Although the number of Chinese sellers has not been made public, according to Data Insight, as of July, the average monthly visits to Wildberries had reached an astonishing 343 million times . Sources revealed that the number of Wildberries Chinese sellers is expected to reach thousands , accounting for a considerable market share on the platform. However, as the market grows rapidly, the problem of payment collection has also sounded the alarm for Chinese sellers who are rushing to Russia to make money. Under the Russia-Ukraine situation, affected by the complex influence of geopolitical factors such as Western sanctions against Russia, some Russian banks were kicked out of the international settlement system SWIFT, and a large amount of foreign exchange was frozen ; at the same time, many banks changed their collection policies for Russia, and the review stage was full of challenges... A series of problems have led to delays in the cross-border collection process. Although Ozon launched GEP independent of the SWIFT system and Wildberries started testing a new payment system to deal with this situation, it takes a certain amount of time to update the infrastructure and compliance procedures of the entire payment system. Therefore, the current collection problem is still a huge challenge for many small and medium-sized cross-border sellers. In addition, as more sellers enter the Russian e-commerce market, Russia's cross-border e-commerce policies seem to be tightening. According to the Russian Federal Customs Service, the tax-free threshold for Russian imported packages will be adjusted to 200 euros from April 1, 2024. Previously, from April 2022 to March 2024, the Eurasian Economic Commission, at the initiative of Russia, raised the threshold for personal tax-free online shopping from 200 euros to 1,000 euros. Various signs indicate that although the Russian e-commerce market is still in a stage of rapid growth, the market space is no longer as large as it was in the past two years. In addition, the situation between Russia and Ukraine is still unclear. For cross-border sellers, there are still many unstable factors in this market. When will the payment delays of Ozon and Wildberries be completely resolved? Is the Russian e-commerce market still worth investing in? Let's wait for the answers to these questions together.
|
