"Everyone is looking for ways to adapt." What Belarusian sellers are doing after fires at Wildberries warehouses

The founder of the solnce.agency consulting agency, Alexander Zagorsky, told MYFIN about the scale of losses for Belarusian and Russian sellers, community sentiment, and concrete steps to preserve businesses.

— How did you and your clients react to the news about the warehouse fires?

— Approximately a week before the first attacks, Wildberries began to change its operating conditions, and this was actively discussed in the seller community. Everyone understood: something was brewing, and tension was only growing. Therefore, when news emerged that Elektrostal was burning and goods were destroyed, there was no great shock. Rather, there was a feeling: "Here it is, it happened."

Due to a bad premonition, my clients and I did not store goods in one place and consciously distributed them across all available regions. Of five or six such locations, two remain today. My clients and I were luckier than some others, but many large sellers stored goods in a single warehouse center — their losses are significantly greater.

My clients reacted to the news differently, as each had a different scale of losses. Some panicked, some outwardly remained calm. But absolutely everyone felt for the first time that military actions had reached their businesses.

Then emotional swings began: warehouses continued to be attacked on different days, and some people's goods literally survived one night, while others were hit later. One way or another, almost everyone was affected. Every project I accompanied suffered. Literally every single one — with direct destruction of products.

— What is the scale of direct losses?

— Losses range from one thousand to one hundred thousand dollars in prime cost. For me personally — 40 thousand Belarusian rubles. And this needs to be multiplied by one and a half to two, because for most sellers, Wildberries provides about 70% of revenue — it's the main sales channel.

Next come a decrease in the number of orders, the absence of discounts for regular customers, a drop in revenue, and a complete misunderstanding of what will happen to the marketplace tomorrow. The loss of such a sales channel is the strongest possible blow.

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— What did you and your clients do in the first hours?

— We read the news, assessed the scale, and thought about where to move the surviving goods. Immediately, many thoughts arose about the need to switch to our own warehouses and look for alternative sales channels: Ozon, Yandex Market, our own online stores.

Many began to study the range of drones and discuss whether supplies should be moved further into the regions.

All this stream of thoughts had to be turned into concrete decisions.

— How do you assess the mood of sellers now?

— Despair. Everyone is depressed, no one understands what to do. The Russian market was already living under conditions of constant complication: VAT, taxes, price increases, rising marketplace commissions. And now the entire system has been hit.

But I am endlessly impressed by people who don't even think of giving up. None of my clients have reached a point where they would close everything down. Everyone is looking for ways to adapt, recalculate costs, reduce them, to honorably survive this situation.

Goods can be produced anew, a temporary lack of money can be overcome. Something else is frightening: what if Wildberries as a sales channel disappears completely? Where will the consumer go?

We don't see them massively switching to Ozon or individual online stores. An entire generation of buyers is accustomed to the marketplace model. And if the platform disappears, market restructuring could ruin businesses faster than any fire.

— How much has all this affected Belarusians?

— Exactly the same way it affected Russians. The platform is one, the sales channel is one. The main blow fell on Russian territory, but Belarusian sellers who stored goods in Russian warehouses lost them just the same.

Only those who worked according to the FBS model and shipped goods directly from a warehouse in Belarus found themselves in a slightly more advantageous position.

FBS is a model where goods are stored not in a Wildberries warehouse, but with the seller themselves. When an order is received, the seller themselves packs it and delivers it to the marketplace's reception point, and then the platform handles delivery to the buyer.

They have no direct losses from burned inventory, but the systemic crisis of trust, a drop in the number of orders, and disruption of logistics chains affect absolutely everyone.

— How is logistics generally structured on Wildberries?

— The scheme is simple: the manufacturer or supplier brings goods to the marketplace's warehouse and links this stock to the product card. When a buyer places an order, the system directs it from a specific warehouse to a pickup point.

If a seller works according to the FBS model, then after receiving an order, they themselves transfer the goods to the marketplace, which then transports them via a transit warehouse to a pickup point.

This entire system was built without much flexibility, so the destruction of major hubs instantly paralyzed it.

— What is happening now with goods inventory after the destruction of warehouse centers?

— Stocks that were in the attacked warehouses are either destroyed or frozen. The main problem is that they are in an unclear status.

In the personal account, they are displayed, you see the quantity, but you cannot order them. At the same time, it is impossible to receive official confirmation of the actual condition of the goods.

Whether it completely burned down or was flooded with water during extinguishing, or partially survived — no answer is given. There has been no loss assessment from the marketplace, and when it will appear is unclear.

— What should a seller do if the warehouse burned down, but the goods are still listed in the system?

— Hope for the best. It sounds trivial, but right now it truly is the main thing. Panic won't help.

We, for our part, are collecting as much evidence as possible: screenshots of remnants, video recordings, data exports with dates, linking to news reports — on such dates, such a warehouse was attacked. We are recording that the goods cannot be returned or moved.

And with this package of documents, we are sending pre-trial claims to the Russian and Belarusian legal entities of Wildberries. We demand either confirmation of the actual status of the goods or a refund of the money equivalent to the prime cost plus lost profit. This is the only algorithm that works today.

— What is happening now with the marketplace's logistics?

— Wildberries is trying to rebuild its logistics chains almost daily. According to my estimates, 20-25% of warehouse capacities have been affected, with the largest warehouse centers that processed and accumulated the main order flows in Russia being knocked out.

Storage capacities still remain, but rebuilding routes under conditions where key hubs are destroyed means disruption of the entire system. The load on surviving warehouses has increased colossally. Sellers' logistics costs have also gone up.

— Do you believe in compensation from Wildberries?

— I have information from people close to the situation, which I cannot confirm documentarily, but the issue of payments is being worked on in both Russia and Belarus. Aid from governments is promised.

As for Belarus specifically — the situation here looks more promising. The total volume of losses for Belarusian sellers compared to Wildberries' revenue is not that significant, so it is objectively easier for the platform to deal with them.

Wildberries has money for settlements, and I think compensations are highly likely. In Russia, everything is more complicated — the scale of losses is an order of magnitude greater there, so it's harder to predict.

— What do you recommend to sellers who were not directly affected by the situation?

— There are practically none. Everyone was affected. Everyone now faces a choice: to continue working with the platform or not, how to reformat their business, how to preserve their team.

I recommend everyone not to panic, to think soberly, to look for new sales channels, to diversify. Diversification and once again, diversification.

— Should Ozon and other platforms be considered as a way to preserve business?

— Yes, but not from the perspective of the security of a specific warehouse, but from the perspective of risk diversification.

Rumors are varied: whether Ozon will be attacked or not. No one can give guarantees. Therefore, the more widely goods are distributed across different platforms and the more sales channels are involved, the lower the risks. Currently, this is the only strategy that works.

— What will happen to the market next?

— Globally, no one knows. The dynamic is so rapid that any forecast can become outdated by the next weekend. Anything can happen.

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