The Business of Fashion
Agenda-setting intelligence, analysis and advice for the global fashion community.
Agenda-setting intelligence, analysis and advice for the global fashion community.
Last week, Russia’s top e-commerce platform, Wildberries, announced a 2 percent price reduction on payments made with Russian systems MIR, SBP and SberPay, explaining the move by saying it was simply making transaction commission costs more transparent.
The platform itself is charged a lower commission when processing transactions with domestic payment systems, and is charged an additional 2 percent commission when consumers pay with foreign cards, such as Visa and Mastercard.
Wildberries said Russians can save about 40 million roubles ($540,000) collectively per day by paying with domestic systems.
After the introduction of the new policy MIR cards leapfrogged Visa and Mastercard to become the most used payment method on Wildberries. SberPay too has seen a rapid rise in its transaction volumes, which have increased five-fold since the new policy was introduced.
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Now Visa is fighting back, warning banks working with Wildberries they can face penalties of $25,000 for charging extra fees for purchases using Visa cards, as it constitutes a violation of Visa’s rules.
Learn more:
How Russia’s Richest Woman Made Her Fortune in Fashion
Wildberries.ru, the online fashion business she started from home whilst on maternity leave now turns over $6 billion per year.
This week’s round-up of global markets fashion business news also features Burberry’s trademark dispute in China, pan-African e-tailer Jumia and South Korea’s investigation into Coupang.
The growing popularity of ‘T-beauty’ brands across Asia has made their home country an increasingly important market for global players.
Local streetwear brands, festivals and stores selling major global labels remain relatively small but the country’s community of hypebeasts and sneakerheads is growing fast.
This week’s round-up of global markets fashion business news also features Senegalese investors, an Indian menswear giant and workers’ rights in Myanmar.