Instead of compensation, Russian retail giant offers discounts and loans to sellers affected by drone attacks
Tatyana Kim, founder and CEO of Russian online retailer Wildberries, has announced the company's first support measures for sellers whose goods were destroyed in warehouse fires following Friday night's Ukrainian strikes. The measures stop short of direct compensation, instead offering discounts on company services.
Kim said affected sellers can receive discounted storage for goods for 45 days following delivery, along with a full discount on transit shipments to regional warehouses. Wildberries Bank also said it would offer the sellers preferential loans and payment deferrals of up to six months.
The company has maintained that it is under no obligation to compensate sellers for goods damaged or destroyed by drone, missile, or other munitions strikes. However, Kim said that Wildberries was working to determine the size of future payouts and additional financial support measures.
“Work on a support mechanism for sellers is ongoing. It's a more complicated process, since we need to assess the damage to determine the scale of payouts. Based on expert estimates, that will take up to 30 days,” she wrote on Sunday.
That same day, the Telegram channel Post– reported that Wildberries had begun deleting inventory records from the burnt-out warehouses from its database. Sellers said they had been trying to document what was left of their inventory, only to watch the records vanish from their accounts.
The channel noted that sellers need these inventory records to challenge, in court, the clause in Wildberries' terms of service absolving the company of liability for goods destroyed by drone strikes. Wildberries itself denies deleting any inventory data.
According to Russian business daily Vedomosti, total damages from the Ukrainian strikes on Wildberries warehouses in Elektrostal and Kotovsk could exceed 50 billion rubles (€558 million). The company has declined to comment on the figure.
The targets of Ukraine’s drone attack on Russian regions on Friday night included an oil depot and two Wildberries warehouses. Seven warehouse workers were killed at the company’s facility in the Tambov region, according to local authorities, and one more person died in the Moscow suburb of Elektrostal, where another warehouse was struck.
