Russia E-commerce Intelligence

M.Video PR director Sergey Kolyada told Radio RBC that the company logged its highest-ever two-month inflow of sellers: July 2026 set an all-time monthly record for new registrations, with more than 1,600 partners joining — up 59% versus June and 168% versus January. Total registered sellers now exceed 12,000.

By end-June 2026, M.Video and Eldorado's combined store network shrank from over 1,100 locations a year earlier to 638 — a decline of more than 40%. The company frames it as a shift from classic retail to a multi-category platform with its own marketplace: its largest suppliers are being moved to an agency model so the assortment can be expanded via third-party sellers without buying stock upfront.

The Eurasian Economic Commission's internal market protection department completed a safeguard investigation into tinplate imports (flat rolled steel over 600 mm wide and under 0.5 mm thick, tin-plated) and published its report on the EAEU portal on 31 August, recommending a 25.2% safeguard duty for three years. The probe was initiated by Belarus's Metalloprokatnaya Kompaniya and backed by MMK. China's share of supply has risen to 93–100%, with volumes up 42–60% year on year in Q3 2025 and 12–25% in Q4. Over the same period EAEU output fell 12–27%, capacity utilisation dropped 18–33 percentage points, and sales profit fell 80–95%, with production loss-making in Q3–Q4 2025. Tinplate is used for metal packaging of canned food, paints, chemicals and cosmetics.

On the morning of 31 August, CDEK services suffered a major outage: according to Detector404, more than 500 complaints were filed in the hour before 11:00 MSK, with 46% of users unable to reach the website, 33% the mobile app and 14% reporting problems with their personal account. CDEK's press office told TASS the disruption was caused by a planned internal systems update and services would return to normal within hours; parcels and customer data were unaffected and branches and delivery continued operating.

The government subcommittee for digital platform development approved a 2026–2027 roadmap for regulating the platform economy, drawn up from proposals by ministries, the Central Bank and industry associations. Most measures amend the laws on the platform economy, consumer rights protection and state control (supervision). Key provisions: regulating discounts funded by platforms; requiring platforms to give sellers 45 days' notice before changing payout deadlines and rules; separate rules for returning goods of acceptable quality; mandating display of a single unified price that does not vary by payment method or loyalty programme participation; and equalising conditions for Russian and foreign sellers operating through intermediary digital platforms, plus remote real-time supervision. Deputy PM Dmitry Grigorenko said the platform economy law takes effect in October 2026 and that a second legislative package is near-ready and will go to the State Duma shortly; Economy Minister Maxim Reshetnikov added that the ministry will monitor enforcement practice.

Opora Rossii president Alexander Kalinin sent a letter to Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin on 28 August asking that the tax relief perimeter be extended from Wildberries to Ozon and its sellers. Current government resolution No. 1074 of 25 August 2026 covers only Wildberries sellers and platform owner RWB: those whose losses reach at least 5% of annual revenue get a one-year deferral on VAT (except import VAT), profit tax, the Unified/Automatic simplified tax, insurance contributions and related advance payments, followed by a 12-month equal instalment plan. A moratorium on tax audits runs to year-end and debt collection deadlines are pushed back six months. The Ministry of Economic Development has said it would consider support for Ozon only if the marketplace itself requests it.

According to VTB and Online Patent calculations released ahead of the Eastern Economic Forum, more than 2,700 trademarks from Asia-Pacific companies were registered in Russia in H1 2026 — up 15% year on year and 2.3 times the H1 2021 figure. China saw the largest increase, up 3.6 times to 1,900 marks; Japan rose 1.5x to 192 and South Korea 1.3x to 238. Registrations are concentrated in electronics, IT, transport, automotive products and mechanical engineering, with notable growth in consumer categories such as clothing, footwear, cosmetics and personal care.

Data from Chestny Znak operator CRPT shows Russian perfume imports fell 10.7% year on year to 29 million units in January–July 2026: eau de toilette down 18.2% to 7.2 million bottles, cologne down 19.5% to 150,700 units, and eau de parfum down 6.5% to 16.3 million. Perfume (dukhi) was the exception, up 7.1% to 4.4 million bottles. Russian perfume output over the same period rose 22.9% to 72.3 million packs, with perfume production up 77.1% to nearly 34 million bottles, lifting domestic companies past a 71% market share. CRPT's consumer goods head Varvara Mikhailova said import substitution is under way; Pyotr Bobrovsky, executive director of the perfume and cosmetics producers' association, cautioned that the growth comes from contract manufacturing orders rather than new capacity (fewer than 20 Russian perfume makers own their own plants), with cosmetics and apparel producers moving aggressively into the category.

Citing distributor data reported by Kommersant, Russian server memory and storage prices rose sharply in H1 2026, with some component models selling for three times their end-2025 price and server memory up 25–150% over six months. Marvel-Distribution puts its maximum estimate of Russia's 2026 memory market at RUB 160 billion. Experts interviewed attribute the surge to the AI boom reallocating manufacturing capacity toward neural-network hardware and expect no decline in electronics prices over the next 12 months.

Russia's central bank published official rates on 31 August, effective 1 September: USD 86.3793, EUR 100.5714, CNY 12.8580. Against the previous effective group (published 28 August, in force 29–31 August: USD 85.6007, EUR 99.6820, CNY 12.7335), the yuan gained 0.98%, the dollar 0.91% and the euro 0.89% — the rouble weakened against all three. Note: the CBR published no new rates on 29–31 August; the 28 August group remained in force.

M.Video's H1 2026 IFRS results: total GMV down 26.9% year on year to RUB 152.6bn, revenue down 36.8% to RUB 108.2bn, gross profit falling from RUB 27bn to RUB 4.1bn, EBITDA at minus RUB 14.7bn and net loss widening from RUB 25.2bn to RUB 36.1bn; retail sales fell 36.8% to RUB 89.2bn. The mix is shifting sharply online: total online sales reached RUB 63.4bn, lifting the online share of GMV from 32.2% for full-year 2025 to 41.5%; the in-house marketplace's GMV quadrupled year on year to over RUB 17.7bn (11.6% of total GMV), with more than 12,000 sellers. Own inventory stood at RUB 70.6bn at end-June, down 14.7% from end-2025, as the largest suppliers move to an agency model and third-party sellers account for a growing share.