First, Russian retail should know its place. Second, there’s no any reasonable mechanism of defining profit margins for the goods sold in Russian supermarkets. Third, everything’s done just to show off.
These three conclusions can be made out of the recent surprising raid of Vladimir Putin to the main Russian supermarket “Perekryostok” that he took right in the middle of the meeting on retail prices in Russia with his ministers. I must admit that seeing a second man in Russia walking in your supermarket isn’t anything you are dreaming of – the personnel of the supermarket was terrified to death.

As it came out later, Putin’s visit to the supermarket was all about finding a difference between the goods wholesale prices and the final consumer prices in the supermarkets. Prime minister was visibly unhappy to see a 100% margin for meat produce and sounded his unhappiness to the X5 Retail Group director Yuri Kobaladze. Kobaladze reacted obediently saying he would drop the prices “tomorrow”. Nevertheless it didn’t stop him from rejecting these promises later in his interview to Echo of Moscow radio station where he told on air that he had been «joking» about reducing the prices and that the journalists distorted his words and “put them out of the context”. Meanwhile “Perekryostok” is now under a very stromg attention of the journalists and Kobaladze had nothing to do than to do something – he’s trying to divert the press’ attention with maneuvers like “a great sale” and “prices reduction for some produce”. Once Kobaladze realized that he was not the goal of Mr. Putin’s visit, he relaxed and came back to his impudent mood saying he had no intentions to drop the prices.

Why am I talking about all those things? Because I do wonder what would have happened if Putin came to some wine boutique in Moscow and compared the incoming and shelf price for some bottles? Interesting!