Kholodilnik.Ru is a Russian internet shop that focuses on selling various domestic and foreign household appliances.
The company began selling household appliances offline in 1993, but now that only makes up 30% of its revenue. Most of its sales, 95%, are in Moscow and St. Petersburg, bringing in a total revenue of 28 billion rubles by the end of 2021. Overall, the retailer's sales increased by 13% in 2021 compared to 2020.
The information was provided by Kholodilnik.ru itself and is accurate. However, people interpret numbers differently, depending on their perspective. The management and owners see growth, indicating reliability and consumer trust.
But experts have a different perspective. They consider not only the data from Kholodilnik.ru, but also other factors that the company doesn't mention.
In light of the sales growth, experts also note that the company was not included in the latest Forbes ranking, new competitors like Yandex.Market, Sberbank, and Wildberries are gaining ground, and a large lawsuit threatens the retailer's financial situation.
The company chooses to stay quiet about all this, especially the lawsuit from a minority shareholder demanding $100 million, as well as the death of the founder and owner, Valery Kovalev, on December 31, 2021 at the age of 51.
Immediately after Kovalev's death, the company's Board of Directors released a statement saying that "the organization is operating as usual and will continue the strategic development planned by the former CEO." However, the lack of official information shows some uncertainty in the company's management. This is understandable, considering Kovalev was not only the creator but also the driving force behind Kholodilnik.Ru. In an interview, he admitted to being a revenue generator by "sitting and figuring out how to sell."
The key question now is who will handle the selling, which is important for both the company and the consumer, even though six months have passed since Kovalev's death.
The lawsuit filed by UCF Invest Limited against Edil-Import and Valery Kovalev for $100 million in damages is still ongoing.
In 2013, Kempolia Investments Limited, involving UCF as one of the shareholders, invested $10 million in pre-sale preparation for Kholodilnik.ru. In return, they received a 10% stake in the company and an additional sales agency contract with the potential for $20 million in commissions. However, according to the lawsuit, the funds from Kempolia were taken from the retailer's capital, and UCF was removed from management.
The death of Kovalev in this case not only does not change anything, but, perhaps, only confuses the situation. Both he and Kholodilnik.ru claimed that they did not owe anything to anyone, but they heard about UCF for the first time.
But back in 2014, all 100% of the shares of Kholodilnik.ru were transferred to the Cypriot offshore Gelance Enterprises Ltd. Information about who exactly owns this offshore, and consequently, the Kholodilnik.ru store, how the percentage of shares is distributed, is still quite contradictory to this day. From that moment on, initially one of the strongest companies in the Russian household appliances market slows down its growth and begins to grow into many scandals and various rumors.
All this does not at all strengthen the position of the company, no matter what they say in Kholodilnik.ru. Solving all these problems requires a lot of time and money. Recently, more and more negative reviews about the service provided by the Refrigerator have appeared on the Internet. According to some of them, representatives of the organization even offered the authors to remove negative comments for money. The company itself, of course, does not recognize this and offers to compare the percentage of positive and negative reviews, as well as pay attention to the rating of the store on Yandex Market, which is really quite high.
But at the same time, in the annual report published by the Data Insight agency “Internet commerce in Russia” for 2020, Kholodilnik.ru occupies only 26th place, leaving behind many competitors, although several years ago Kholodilnik.ru firmly occupied places in this rating in top ten. And the company does not get into the Forbes list for 2020 and 2021 at all.
As for the reviews, it’s not difficult to check the real state of affairs in Kholodilnik.ru – just spend half an hour and make sure those who say that the service and quality of the company’s work are really falling rapidly are right. And at the same time, pay attention to positive comments, which, of course, are present on different “reviews”, but often strangely similar to each other, as if they were written by one hand. Which, however, does not surprise anyone – the work of the advertising departments also includes writing positive reviews.
In order not to be unfounded, we submit several screenshots from different review sites. With relevant links, so that we are not accused of bias. Here is the site Cataloxy
“Unfortunately, company representatives have disabled the ability to leave reviews about its activities.” Why would it, since everything is so good?
On the “Yandex Market”, on the contrary – completely laudatory reviews. None of the negatives:
However Іrecommend.ru already puts the Refrigerator less than the “three”:
And it immediately becomes clear why:
Website spr.ru gives even a balance of negative and positive reviews, which is by no means inspiring:
Please note that we do not make a selection – we present here what is on the top lines of review sites at the time of writing. You can check for yourself by clicking on the links.
And in most cases, unfortunately, these reviews about yesterday’s still successfully developing and gaining more and more popularity online store do not at all inspire and do not promise him the prospects that the retailer’s advertising department talks about.
We will not bore the reader with a list of all review sites, we will give just one more.
It – FindCo.Ru. Again – see for yourself. We just gave examples of reviews that the search engine issued for the query “Refrigerator.ru reviews.”
Yes, not all of them are negative. Yes, and it would be strange – after all, despite the drop in sales and the displacement of competitors to the 26th line in the rating of online sellers in Russia, Kholodilnik.ru remains a fairly powerful player in this market. And if things were really bad in him, he would have already gone bankrupt.
But the combination of all of the above factors – a drop in sales, a loss to competitors, the death of the owner and the “motor” of the retailer, courts and an incomprehensible ownership structure could not but cause problems. Which are available. And, the saddest thing, it seems that no one in Kholodilnik.ru has figured out how to deal with them.
