Will the introduction of a 15% tax kill foreign online commerce

A week ago, AKIT proposed to tax all purchases of Russians in foreign online stores with an additional tax of 15%. It can be understood. Despite the courageous struggle of this organization, the FCS and other services, the volume of foreign trade continues to grow. In 2018, they broke regular records : the increase reached 24% per year, according to the results, the Russians spent more than $ 10 billion! All this is mainly - without paying duties and VAT. Favorable for buyers, but not beneficial for large stores, tax and state budget.

Since the previous measures were insufficient, and foreign purchases continue to go up, it's time to take something else. Earlier, the government has repeatedly listened to the proposals of AKIT. We see no reason not to obey this time either.

We have no pleasant words about this. Obviously, this can hit hard on domestic buyers, who will have fewer attractive options. But it became interesting to us, but what really will affect these 15% of the tax? Does this figure make sense, and how much do you really need to introduce a tax to discourage buyers from interest in foreign markets?

Of course, shopping abroad has many factors. Not everyone is after the price. Many people order and deliver with us new models, the latest collections or things that simply are not for sale in Russia. But, of course, price is the most important thing. That is why she is so pressured in AKIT. So let's see what really happens in terms of prices, and how much such a new tax on goods can hit our business and the wallets of Russians.

Experts say that “the drivers of cross-border trade growth are categories such as electronics, clothing and shoes” (this is from the same article by RBC). All sorts of sweets and branded cosmetics have been going well with us lately , but let's go through the most popular segments.

With Amazon, Walmart, eBay and other giants, everything is clear. They can give low prices simply due to their volume and the competition of sellers inside the site. Until the Yandex and Sberbank project develops, there is nothing to compare them with in the Russian Federation. Therefore, for the purity of the experiment, let's look at two stores as similar as possible. Just one sells for the Russians, and the other for the Americans. There are actually a lot of them.

For example, Adidas.ru and Adidas.com. The same business, the same owners, the same website (only with different banners for new offers). It is easier to compare here than in many other stores, because the company on the Russian site leaves English names for the models of its clothes and shoes.

So, we take goods in the Russian store, we hammer in the search for the American. Find a match. A few hours later we get a simple label - a small comparison of Adidas prices . What is visible in it? On average, in Russia, the same shoes and the same clothes are sold at 45% more expensive. There are especially serious cases when the difference is 176% (discount in America), there are those same treasured for AKIT 15% (discount in Russia).

Several simple things are immediately noticeable. Americans really love their discounts. In Russia, they are more wary. A significant part of the goods on Adidas.com is sold at a discount, while in Russia they have an original price. The fact that most of the goods sold in the Russian Federation are previous collections, which have not been produced abroad for six months, is trying to sell their remains there. Many things that exist in the Russian version of the site in the American have long been discontinued.

Once again: no one suspects the company of a special overestimation of their prices for the Russians, and why would she? But all the same, due to sales volumes and logistics, without exception, goods abroad are much cheaper, plus there are an order of magnitude more goods in the US version of the site. Still, the United States is for Adidas (and for many others) the main market, and Russia, unfortunately, is secondary.

The funniest, in our opinion, example was the T-shirt of the Russian national team for the 2018 World Cup. It would seem the form of Russia, right? But in the USA it costs almost half the price! Is there really more demand for it?

By the way, we checked it during the World Cup - then in Russia it cost even more, 8990 rubles. And probably tens of thousands of people bought it, not even suspecting that it could cost exactly three times cheaper than the * .com version of the same site.

Well, maybe Adidas is something special, and all others are raising prices for the desired 15%? We look at a site of a different order. Donna Karan New York is a fashion house selling women's clothing and accessories. The plus for us is that there are DKNY.com and DKNY.ru, absolutely similar sites. Minus - for some reason, in Russian the names of the models are not indicated (they simply write “Blouse”, “Pants”), which makes the search and comparison of models a little more difficult.

Not many things come into contact, so the DKNY table is even more modest . But the difference in amounts is amazing. The average markup for Russian buyers is 149% . There are two records: for a T-shirt, which in the USA costs the equivalent of 2535 rubles, in Russia they ask for 9990 rubles (an increase of 294%). And for a jacket that is sold in the United States for more or less acceptable 7,735 rubles, in the Russian Federation the same store wants 21,990 rubles (an increase of 14,255 rubles, i.e. two of the same jackets).

Needless to say, while there are people left in Russia who are ready to give so much for “prestigious” clothes, plus or minus 15% will not play a role here at all. As long as the store itself has no desire to reduce prices for the Russian Federation, nothing will change. Fashionable clothes in Russia are wound up to the ceiling, no AKIT efforts, even if you make a 100% tax, will not fix the situation here.

Okay, maybe a big price increase is characteristic only for shoes and clothes (they break their moles at our customs, for example)? What about electronics? Another simple comparison: Apple.com and Apple.ru. It’s most convenient here, you don’t even have to look for anything, just replace “.com” with “.ru”, and we get a page of the same model in a different version of the store. Thank you, Apple!

What do we see in the table ? The average price difference for Apple is 33.6% . Largest for iPhone, lowest for Apple Watch and iPad. The percentage figures are not very impressive, but in reality the savings are huge. The difference for the MacBook Pro 256 Gb is 38 thousand rubles - almost the average salary in the country. The difference for the iPhone XS and XS Max is 25-27 thousand. Even if this “profit” is halved, the amounts remain too large. Obviously, those who already know that you can buy Apple abroad, even with the introduction of a new tax, will continue to do so.

Another comparison: the M.Video store, one of the founding fathers of AKIT, is against Newegg / B & H, the same electronics stores, only from the USA. Result : an average of 47% markup. And the new record holder is the Acer gaming laptop, which has grown, no less, by 42,255 rubles (58%). Through the efforts of AKIT, some of this money will already have to pay a fee (it starts to go if the price of the goods is above € 500), but the savings are still very substantial. It is unlikely that anyone will lose their desire to get acquainted with foreign sites if they understand that they can save more money in an hour than they earn in a few days.

Well, of course, it is worth recalling that the same Adidas and DKNY are far from the most profitable stores in America. They are taken here simply as a classic example. To see what will happen if you do not change anything at all, except for the country of purchase. In fact, clothing and shoes in the United States are much more profitable to take at discounters, such as 6PM, where sales are open all day, or at Amazon / eBay, where sellers have reason to try to offer the lowest price.

In general, excuse me, AKIT, but 15% here will obviously not be enough. This does not cut off any product categories. Shopping in the United States will still remain cheaper - except for those things that are the same in the Russian Federation and the USA, like Chinese smartphones. In order for those who already buy abroad to go back to Russian stores, the minimum tax on foreign purchases should be at least 30%. Then, possibly, faster delivery and convenient returns will again begin to outweigh.

So it is not in vain that the people in AKIT are worried. The business model of the sites included in this organization is often based on ordering themselves “over the hill”, and then selling things to those buyers who were too lazy to do it. They have to pay for warehouses, for the labor of employees, for their own marketing. And to get a net profit so that there is something to bring to officials for the necessary laws. At the beginning of the 2000s, there were no such problems: Amazon and Alibaba were just starting to develop, users in Russia overwhelmingly did not know about them, and online purchases were not so common. Now the genie has jumped out of the bottle, you won’t drive it back (except for “Cheburnet”). One excess duty here, as we see, will not be decisive.

And, of course, members of the organization probably have hope that reducing competition will allow AKIT stores to raise prices more freely, suggesting to customers that they have no alternative. Funnily, experts call the same increase figure, 15%. And this over time will again push customers towards foreign sites.

So, from our point of view, they are advertising us, showing that they are not able to win in direct competition. And once again, they make the topic glow in the news, reminding customers that in foreign stores all goods are cheaper so far. Even if a new tax is introduced (we assess this probability as medium-high), prices for Amazon, eBay, AliExpress and in manufacturers' stores will remain much lower than Russian ones. Especially after the next expected increase in prices for Russian retailers (it is not for nothing that AKIT started all this leapfrog, right?).