The president of the association for consumer protection, Efektiva, Dejan Gavrilović, stated that the ongoing boycott of retail chains in Serbia due to high product prices, which has been active for more than two months through various models, has had certain effects.
“It is certainly not the effect that we all wish for and expect, such as a 30 or 50 percent reduction in prices, but what is evident is that the prices of certain products, parts of the assortment, and regular prices have decreased compared to previous periods,” Gavrilović told Danas newspaper, as reported by Beta. As an example, he pointed to the 300-gram “Milka” chocolate, which, as he recalled, cost around 900 or 1,000 dinars two months ago, and now its regular price is about 600 dinars.
“There are other products whose regular price has fallen, but there are also those whose regular price has increased, such as coffee. However, the reason here is external influence, due to the rise in coffee prices on the global market,” explained Gavrilović.
He emphasized that a much larger part of the product range now includes items in promotions, and that these promotions are somewhat larger than before.
“Now, in promotions, products can be bought cheaper than before. For example, some toilet paper that was 500 dinars, and on sale for 250, can now be bought for 230 dinars. Or soup that was on sale for 100 dinars can now be bought for 60,” he said.
As for consumers, Gavrilović believes that a large portion of them have permanently changed their shopping habits.
“They found alternatives. They buy at different places—at the market, from other sellers, smaller retail chains, at Russian-owned stores, or from less well-known and cheaper retail chains, directly from suppliers… in this way, they save their money. This may be the biggest benefit of this whole situation, that people have permanently altered their way of thinking and perception about prices. Finding alternatives impacts the revenue of retailers,” he pointed out.
Gavrilović believes that if there had been no decline in turnover, “DIS, Univerexport, and Maxi would not have fired young people, would not have terminated contracts for facility maintenance, would not have reduced salaries, and their employees would not have left.”
“It is certain that there is a drop in traffic and that something is happening, maybe not as quickly as everyone would expect, but this is not a battle that can be won in one day. It is a fight that will last for some time, during which prices will gradually decrease,” he said.
Efektiva initially called for a boycott of the five largest retail chains in Serbia on January 31: Delhaize (Maxi and Shop&Go), Mercator (Idea and Roda), DIS, Univerexport, and Lidl.
Currently, only one chain, Maxi, remains on the boycott list throughout April.
Danas reminds that the boycott action initially received a good response from consumers. According to data from the Tax Administration of Serbia, on January 31, the number of fiscal invoices issued was about a quarter lower than the day before, and turnover dropped by 32 percent.
Following this one-day boycott, Efektiva, along with the associations Prosperitet from Novi Sad and the Republican Union of Consumers from Belgrade, issued a new call for a boycott of the same retail chains for five days, from February 10 to 14.
The reason for this five-day boycott, as they explained at the time, was the lack of reaction from retail chains to the initial boycott, and in some cases even an increase in prices. While no official data on turnover during the five-day boycott was available, Efektiva estimated that the income of retail chains during this period was lower by 25 to 30 percent compared to the previous week.
However, Efektiva announced that after persistent requests, they received data from the Tax Administration but considered it “strange” because, when comparing the income and the number of invoices issued during the week of the boycott with the same five working days from the previous week, the results indicated that there was no boycott at all.
“The data submitted by the Tax Administration says that the drop in income amounted to only 4 percent, and that the number of invoices issued also fell by the same percentage. Interestingly, on the day of the boycott warning on January 31, these same merchants had a total turnover of 911 million dinars, while during this week of the boycott, the average daily income was 1.25 billion dinars. The week before, the average daily income was 1.30 billion dinars,” stated Efektiva.
“As far as we are concerned, we absolutely do not believe the submitted data and will not request it anymore,” said the consumer association.
