SHOPPING CENTERS RUSSIA | DECEMBER 2018 | 68
stores. Offline sales attract mostly representatives of a more conservative older generation.
Ulanovskaya notes two main trends: on the one hand , the popularity of Black Fridays is indeed growing from year to year, going beyond the boundaries of online sales to regular stores. On the other hand, the unscrupulousness of a part of retailers turns into a deterrent: buyers notice increased prices on the eve of the stock, incorrect discounts and restrictions on the volume of promotional goods, about which there has been no prior warning. Such examples appear in social networks and are discussed for a long time, which negatively affects trust in shares.
Growing popularity
Indeed, in Russia there are often unscrupulous sellers. Deception of buyers does not occur in the sense of selling low-quality goods, but as a
quality goods, but as a result of artificially low prices on the eve of the sale, in order to show the “80%” discount instead of the real “30%” discount. The Consumer Unions are trying to control and prevent such situations, the FAS is also planning to join the control. Some shopping centers also make their monitoring and remove unscrupulous tenants from the next year action participant list.
The organizers of online sales, too, are trying to eliminate such situations. «We try to work on our site only with proven stores. For sales, the problem of so-called artificial discounts is more peculiar. However, in recent years, this phenomenon is fading away: everyone has already understood that it is impossible to deceive the customer on the Internet, everything is transparent here. We do not allow the placement of goods with artificial discounts on our website; to exclude them, we conduct preliminary selective monitoring, and the ROCIT hotline is also in the process of the campaign», Morya Komendantova shares her experience .
In general, the buyers themselves have become much more aware of the prices, so it is now quite difficult to deceive them. Most of the buyers themselves are already well able to assess the adequacy of discounts, though.
Text: Maria Perevoshchikova