When gasoline shortages first began on the occupied peninsula, the vast majority of locals didn't think much of it: “Wildberries is still working — I just order delivery and wait at home; no problems at all.” When electricity was added to the list of shortages, Crimeans rushed en masse to buy power banks, generators, and uninterruptible power supplies on that very same marketplace. Russia’s largest online marketplace gave a sense of stability, meeting the demand for all kinds of goods — from groceries to furniture. Crimeans initially viewed the first photos and videos of buildings engulfed in flames and flustered sellers more as a spectacle — after all, Moscow and Tambov are far away. The fires in Krasnodar and Nevinnomyssk made some people wary. And it was only the burned-down warehouse in Simferopol that brought many back to reality.

“I placed an order today; delivery is supposedly in three days. I don’t know how realistic that is: the Simferopol sorting center is still smoldering. So I find it hard to believe that it will take just three days. Obviously, there’s a loss of customers, so they won’t want to scare people away with long delivery times. But it’s precisely this unpredictability that’s stressful, because you can’t plan with certainty how to proceed,” complains a businesswoman from Sevastopol.

An employee at one of the “Wildberries” pickup points in Kerch is also convinced that disruptions are inevitable. According to him, three large hubs used to serve the entire southern region, of which only the Rostov hub remains operational at this time. The Simferopol sorting center is a “second-tier” warehouse, but its shutdown will inevitably lead to disruptions throughout the entire system.

“In the south, the logistics network is currently operating under critical overload. Shoppers throughout Crimea should prepare for widespread delays, while sellers should brace for strict restrictions on accepting goods and rising logistics costs. After all, the Rostov hub isn’t elastic; many goods will be rerouted further into Russia,” the expert said, assessing the situation.

Further increases in logistics costs could be the last straw that breaks the camel’s back, sellers say. Because it’s simply becoming unprofitable to operate.

“First, they raised taxes. Then utility bills. In the spring, they nearly doubled the rent for production facilities. That’s the kind of support businesses get in Crimea. And then it all started with fuel: raw material prices skyrocketed several times over. As for electricity, it’s a complete mystery — one minute it’s there, the next it’s gone. I’m left with the choice of either laying people off or paying them out of my own pocket now that production has stopped. And right at this wonderful moment, Wildberries comes along and says I’ll be able to list half as much product for sale, but I’ll have to pay nearly twice as much to ship it to their warehouse. And this is, although even before the flights resumed, they had already started squeezing us with their extortionate demands for advertising and promotional campaigns,” complains a Simferopol entrepreneur who manufactures high-end furniture.

Another Crimean businessman notes that there is a problem more serious than rising production costs or limits on the amount of products accepted for sale. After all, no one guarantees compensation for losses to those whose goods burn up during yet another raid by Ukrainian drones.

“I have niche products that are difficult to sell offline. Natural herbal cosmetics aren’t the kind of thing you can find in just any supermarket, but people are eager to order them online. We stopped promoting our online store, social media, advertising, and customer support a long time ago because marketplaces are both cheaper and more convenient. But if all of that goes up in smoke in a single day, I’ll be bankrupt. And now I have to choose — risk everything or go back to the old sales methods, which aren’t enough to cover my expenses,” laments the entrepreneur from Bilohirsk.

However, not everyone has that choice. How many Crimeans have actually gone bankrupt or found themselves on the brink of bankruptcy following the fires in Simferopol, Krasnodar, and the Stavropol Krai remains a mystery. For many sellers, the remaining “Wildberries” inventory in their personal accounts is listed as out of stock, and customer support provides no additional information. Many entrepreneurs say they’ve already mentally written off the products that were on the marketplace and are now focusing all their efforts on minimizing losses.

“The losses are enormous. I had about three thousand items listed there, worth several million. And that’s just the cost of goods — there were also expenses for advertising, promotion, and loan obligations. We won’t be working with ‘Wildberries’ anymore. Right now, we’re trying to ship out or sell off the remaining inventory. But I have absolutely no idea where to go from here, because there will definitely be no compensation, and no one cares about our problems. Thousands of people lost their capital, businesses, and jobs in a single day… And everyone acts as if that’s just the way it is,” says an outraged businesswoman from Feodosia, who lost more than half of her merchandise in the July 22 fire in Krasnodar.

Pro-Russian Crimeans are genuinely surprised by their compatriots’ complaints and dismiss the warehouses engulfed in flames as Ukrainian propaganda.

“Well, it’s a nice sight — plumes of smoke rising to the sky. So, a few metric tons of Chinese junk went up in flames, but what’s the point? Is that supposed to somehow stop the Russian missiles that are tearing Ukrainian cities apart day after day? Not a chance. They burned “Wildberries” — now we’ll switch to “Ozon,” says one of CEMAAT’s interviewees from Simferopol.

The marketplace he mentioned is the second-largest in Russia after “Wildberries.” However, there are issues with it in Crimea: “Ozon” doesn’t have its own sorting facility on the peninsula, and the fuel crisis and the risky route through the newly occupied regions have significantly increased delivery times that were already not exactly short.

“I ordered seeds at the very beginning of July. At first, the estimated delivery time was six days. Then they added five days on top of that. Then another five. Then five more. I checked today — they wrote that they’d added another five days. I’ve already missed the seedling schedule. But if I’d ordered from ‘Wildberries,’ it probably wouldn’t have been any better,” says a farmer from the Krasnogvardeisky District.

Currently, 70 percent of all Crimean online sales take place through “Wildberries.” Most of the entrepreneurs surveyed by CEMAAT are convinced that as early as August or September, they’ll have to say goodbye to this marketplace.