This text is an automatic translation from Русский. It was generated by AI and may contain inaccuracies.
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This text is an automatic translation from Русский. It was generated by AI and may contain inaccuracies.
Read original →Sellers of artificial Christmas trees and decorations are abandoning marketplaces ahead of New Year's due to mass returns. How a wave of returns turns revenue into losses and what Wildberries and Ozon are doing to address the problem.
Russian sellers of New Year's goods are massively leaving marketplaces before the holidays due to a wave of returns after New Year's. In 2024, every 14th New Year's item was returned, which turned sellers' seasonal revenue into losses. Marketplaces are trying to tighten return rules, but sellers consider temporarily leaving the platforms the most reliable protection against losses.
Russian marketplaces are entering the pre-New Year season with an unexpected problem: some sellers of artificial Christmas trees, ornaments, and holiday decorations are deliberately cutting back or completely halting sales two weeks before New Year's. The reason isn't a lack of demand, but rather its excessive "flip side": a wave of post-holiday returns that turns seasonal revenue into direct losses.
And this situation repeats year after year. For example, in 2024, Russians spent more than 6 billion rubles on artificial Christmas trees, ornaments, and holiday decorations in just one month. However, after New Year's, every 14th holiday item was returned to pickup points (9% of total Christmas ornament purchases, 8% of artificial trees, and 6% of garlands). As a result, sellers took losses and received merchandise in unsellable condition.
Marketplaces themselves created a model where returns are maximally simplified. For most categories, no clear explanation was required for a long time, and the "customer is always right" logic reinforced consumer extremism: goods are picked up, used for a while, and returned to pickup points in unusable condition. For seasonal goods, this effectively means writing them off until next year.
Some sellers try to protect themselves independently: they add seals, specify restrictions on returns after opening packaging. However, as market participants acknowledge, such measures work poorly under current consumer protection legislation (any goods except, for example, medications, underwear, and cosmetics can be returned within 14 days).
Marketplaces acknowledge growing tensions but emphasize they don't see widespread abuse.
In a conversation with Argument Media, Wildberries' press service stated they're only recording isolated cases of seller complaints and are relying on algorithmic detection of bad-faith behavior:
"The marketplace's job is to create conditions that balance the interests of all parties. We're constantly improving our business processes to minimize the possibility of bad-faith actions and support each side."
Ozon told Argument Media that the company has already moved toward tightening its regulations. The platform has shortened return windows for most categories and created a separate designation for holiday goods:
"For holiday decorations, the return period has been reduced to seven days. The customer must provide photos of the product, packaging, and tags, and when processing returns, pickup point staff verify that the packaging and consumer properties remain intact."
Yandex Market did not respond to Argument Media's inquiry.
Marketplaces, while attempting to find solutions, remain constrained by consumer protection laws that place full responsibility to the buyer on them. The path businesses have chosen—temporarily leaving the platforms—turns out in practice to be the most reliable shield against potential financial losses during peak sales season.