The Association of Internet Commerce Companies sent a letter to Russia’s Minister of Digital Development Maksut Shadayev requesting permission to sell alcohol online with age verification using biometrics. “Vedomosti”.
As AKIT noted, alcoholic beverages remain the only traditional retail product that cannot be sold online in Russia. The ban on sales is now only imposed by “bona fide” market participants, AKIT’s letter said.
AKIT added that by 2023, illegal alcohol sales via the Internet in Russia will amount to 80 billion rubles. The association predicts that by 2024 this figure could reach 100 billion rubles. According to the estimates of the Ministry of Finance NIFI, from 2023 to 2027, the Russian budget will lose 253 billion rubles due to illegal online alcohol sales. According to a study by the Ministry of Finance Research, the number of requests for the keywords “alcohol with delivery” increases by more than 50% every year, and the share of counterfeit products in the volume of alcohol sales via the Internet is increasing. The institute is 53%.
To solve the problem, AKIT proposes to start regulating the sale of alcohol online using the state information system “Unified System for Identification and Authentication of Individuals Using Biometric Personal Data” (GIS EBS).
In its letter, AKIT notes that to implement this idea, food retail, catering, marketplaces and distribution services will need to integrate EBS.
A representative of Azbuka Vkusa supported the idea of legal online sales of alcohol, noting that “the company speaks in favor of remote sales of alcoholic products.”
The head of the Ladoga alcohol production company, Veniamin Grabar, also opposed this idea. He fears that counterfeit products will increase due to alcohol package distribution points.
“When at least one bottle of legal alcohol reaches a distribution point where tens of thousands of people are located throughout the country, dozens of leftists will immediately appear there. [бутылок]”The owner, who has documents on the issue of alcohol, will easily agree to work not for 5 percent of the commission from the markets, but for 105 percent of the conditional Serezha with a five-liter can of rum,” he said.
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Source: Gazeta
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