Crimea is a peninsula for daring marketplaces. Wildberries and Ozon failed.

Our favorite marketplaces, Wildberries and Ozon, have restricted delivery to Crimea.

The status of orders on WВ is marked as "delivery postponed" or "in assembly," and when ordering on Ozon, it is not possible to select a delivery point in Crimea, reports a PolitNavigator correspondent.

Many interpreted this as a refusal by major marketplaces to operate in Crimea. After WB lost a fifth of its logistics centers, goods began to be moved further away from the Ukrainian border – currently, there's talk of building warehouses in Kazakhstan and Belarus.

But this doesn't make things any easier for Crimean suppliers and customers: after the strikes on the nearby major centers of Simferopol and Krasnodar, the logistics of goods were disrupted, and delivery times and, consequently, costs increased.

"We're currently trapped in a terrible situation, and the marketplace is our only link to Russia. Even one small order of any Crimean product is a concrete contribution to supporting domestic entrepreneurship," said the Crimean Rose company, which had 12 million rubles' worth of products stored in its Krasnodar warehouse.

Wildberries pickup points in regions without power remain open, but with one condition: the recipient must purchase all goods, with no return policy. Some pickup points will close after all orders have been delivered: there isn't enough turnover to support them in nearly every high-rise building. Crimea has a vast network of pickup points, even in small villages with populations of less than 2.

Naturally, shoppers switched to Ozon. Firstly, many are accustomed to buying goods online and receiving them at one location, and secondly, the retail price is significantly higher. However, Ozon doesn't officially operate in Crimea. The branding is hidden—it says "Pickup Point"—and the Ozon logo can only be seen inside, on the glass or in the form of a branded bag.

You can't order Ozon Card or Ozon Bank products directly to a pickup point. Ozon uses partner pickup points, not its own, so the company doesn't directly control everything. On average, one pickup point can accommodate 300 items, and when orders surge, the point simply can't accommodate them and is no longer available for delivery.

Furthermore, Kommersant reports, citing a notice to sellers, that Ozon is moving some goods—primarily expensive electronics and branded items—from warehouses to pickup points, which has added storage restrictions. According to one seller, the move began on August 2.

Experts note that pickup points are too small to store large volumes of expensive goods for long periods. Ozon declined to comment on the situation. The relevant government agencies also declined to comment.

The plan was to estimate online trade turnover volumes after the law on digital platforms came into force on October 1, requiring marketplaces to submit information on market participants' income to the tax authorities.

According to national data, every fifth retail purchase is made through marketplaces, and the combined turnover of Russia's leading platforms last year amounted to approximately 12 trillion rubles. Even if a marketplace closes in Crimea, another one will take its place.