The volume of purchases of Russians in foreign stores has decreased, but has not disappeared

After February 24, the volume of purchases of Russians in foreign online stores fell sharply. The main reason is the inability to pay for goods with cards of Russian banks.

After the start of a special military operation in Ukraine on February 24, several popular international brands, including IKEA, Zara and H&M, as well as large online retailers Asos, iHerb, etc., announced the suspension or termination of activities in RUSSIA. Since March 10, Visa and Mastercard have suspended maintenance of cards of Russian banks and their owners have lost the opportunity to use them for payments abroad. In addition, there were problems with logistics. This happened due to the refusal of the key owners of ships and containers, stevedores, to work with Russia. Air traffic between the European Union, some other countries and Russia was also terminated.

According to Data Insight partner Fyodor Virin, a sharp decline in the volume of online retail imports “can be ascertained already now.” Among the reasons are the inability to make purchases due to the unavailability of payment services and logistics, or the greater complexity of these operations. “Now almost no online stores from Europe and North America can work with Russia, the volume of online commerce in these areas has dropped to zero. With Southeast Asia, the situation is better, but even there the volume of online purchases has decreased by several times and, most likely, will continue to decline,” Virin estimates. According to the Association of Internet Commerce Companies (AKIT), in 2021 the volume of cross-border Internet commerce amounted to 527 billion rubles, which corresponds to 11% of the total volume of Internet commerce in Russia. According to the HEAD of AKIT Artem Sokolov,

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But, despite the difficulties, Russians still make purchases in foreign stores. RBC interviewed representatives of intermediary services that allow you to make purchases on foreign sites, how the demand for their services has changed after the departure of large foreign networks and brands.