Since the end of June 2026, 45 incidents have been recorded at the warehouses of the two largest marketplaces. In total, at least 2.1 million square metres of warehouse space has been affected, and sellers’ losses are estimated at hundreds of billions of rubles.
The key problem for the November sales is the missed purchasing window. Goods and raw materials from China for the peak season had to be shipped at the end of August and beginning of September. That was exactly when the warehouse situation remained uncertain, and most sellers suspended new orders.
“After losing their goods, many sellers suspended purchases and tried to figure out how to continue working,” said Vasily Bumagin, board member of the Union of Marketplace Sellers.
Analysts’ expectations are restrained. “There are reasons to expect this year’s sales to be weaker than usual,” says Sergey Semko, lead analyst at Data Insight. Marketplaces are counting on sales growth, but sellers’ reduced stock limits this potential.
The decline is already visible in freight statistics. According to the transport and logistics company Byte Transit, in July–August 2026 the number of issued waybills fell by 12% year on year. In August, shipments fell by 7% by weight and by 4% by volume, according to the company’s CEO Alexey Shpikelman.
The decline may deepen by the end of the year. According to a joint estimate by PEK and M.A. Research, road freight volumes in Russia will fall by 4.6% to 6.5 billion tonnes. The commercial vehicle segment is expected to decline by 2.5% to 2.72 billion tonnes, said Lyudmila Simonova, managing partner of M.A. Research.
Artyom Vaskanyan, deputy CEO of the 3PL operator NC Logistic, allows for an 8–10% year-on-year drop in shipment volumes in the pre-New Year months. According to him, the traditional rush of the pre-holiday sales is not expected so far.
For importers supplying goods through marketplaces, the situation means a specific operational risk: tight deadlines for restoring stock, uncertainty about compensation and reduced available warehouse capacity all coincide with the peak season. Those who did not restart their supply chain from China by October will enter November with an incomplete range.
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