Viktor Yevtukhov does not believe in the price collusion of retail chains
‘Colleagues from the antimonopoly service may have any grounds for doubt, they are highly professional and competent specialists. Nevertheless, frankly speaking, I do not believe in price collusion. I know the retail industry well; I know large and medium-sized retail, which accounts for about 50% of the Russian market. And I will be very surprised if the suspicions of the FAS are justified,’ he said.
We remind, that the FAS of Russia conducts unscheduled on-site inspections against X5 Group (Pyaterochka, Perekrestok, Karusel retail chains), LLC Lenta and JSC Tander (Magnit retail chain) for anti-competitive collusion, the consequence of which may be an increase and maintenance of prices.
In addition, the Dairy Union of Russia appealed to the government of the Russian Federation and the Federal Antimonopoly Service with a request to take measures in connection with high margins on dairy products in federal retail chains.
As Viktor Yevtukhov noted, the decision to conduct inspections of colleagues was influenced, first of all, by the increase in prices for the "borscht set".
‘It was very high this year, this has never happened before. Moreover, we need to ask the question: who forms the price of the goods: the manufacturer, or the retail chain puts a large margin? I can say that the trade margin for these products is quite small, and some retailers even have it negative. And this is not because the retail chains are good or bad, there is just a list of socially significant food products that are in the greatest demand among buyers and whose sales generate traffic,’ the official said.
He added that retail chains compete with each other for attracting a buyer, so they simply cannot afford to put a high trading margin: then they will lose customers. A high margin is set for other categories of goods, for example, for premium products.
‘If someone has questions about the marginality of our retailers, the largest companies that are public publish financial statements. If you study them, you can see that the profitability of retail chains is on average 5-7%,’ Yevtukhov concluded.
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