Less than two weeks have passed since the announcement of the Public Services complaints service. This is a pilot who has a specific deadline and a specific decision to be made based on its results. For businesses, this means that the window for influencing future regulation is right now.
How the service works in its current form
You can file a complaint against Ozon or Wildberries in one of three categories through your personal account at Public Services. The platform receives a notification and must respond. The complaint is recorded with a timestamp, which creates a documentary trail that was previously difficult to obtain.
"Now, to complain about a seller with Ozon or Wildberries, you do not need to collect a pile of papers for the court. It is enough to log into your personal account on the portal and press a couple of buttons," describes progorod.the Russian Federation process.
Why exactly three categories
Refusal to return the goods within seven days is a violation of the law on consumer protection, which applies to B2C, and indirectly affects sellers: if the buyer cannot return the goods on time, the claim goes through the seller, not through the site.
Refusal to refund money is the most frequent complaint of customers about marketplaces in general.
The delay in payment for a cancelled order is already a direct claim of the seller to the platform. It is this category that is most relevant for the foreign trade business: sellers of imported goods regularly face delays in payments for orders canceled by customers.
What happens after June 30th
Two scenarios. First, the service has shown results — many complaints have been processed, the platforms are responding, the statistics are convincing — then the mechanism is expanded on a permanent basis and to a wider range of categories (including what is planned by the law on marketplaces from October). Second: low activity or inconclusive results — the pilot may be extended or revised.
In both cases, the pilot's statistics are the basis for the decision. The more real complaints are filed and recorded, the stronger the argument for expanding the service.
What sellers should do right now
If you have an urgent situation with a delay in payment for a cancelled order, file a complaint through the State Services right now, until June 30. This not only solves your specific problem, but also forms a statistical basis for deciding whether to expand the mechanism.
For companies with systematic problems with payments from Wildberries: every complaint recorded through Public Services is an argument in favor of a permanent protection mechanism that will be useful in the future.
