MINSK, 2 July (BelTA) – The number of online stores in Belarus has surged by 6.5% since the beginning of the year, Inna Gavrilchik, the head of consumer protection and advertising monitoring at the Ministry of Antimonopoly Regulation and Trade, said as she took part in an online conference at BelTA's website.
“A total of 24,021 online stores were registered in the Trade Register as of 1 July 2020 (a 6.5% increase, or 1,469 new stores, from the beginning of the year). As many as 11,406 (47.5%) of them are owned by legal entities and 12,615 (52.5%) belong to individual entrepreneurs,” she said.
According to the data of the Trade Register, in the past five years, the number of online stores grew by 10,922 stores (93.9%) and equaled 22,552 as of 1 January 2020.
The distribution of online stores by region is as follows: there are 15,059 online stores in Minsk (62.7% of the total number), 3,670 in Minsk Oblast (15.3%), 1,354 in Brest Oblast (5.6%), 1,113 in Gomel Oblast (4.6%), 984 in Grodno Oblast (4.1%), 931 in Mogilev Oblast (3.9%), and 910 in Vitebsk Oblast (3.8%).
A total of 14,943 economic entities are engaged in retail trade via online stores, including 6,318 legal entities (42.3%) and 8,625 individual entrepreneurs (57.7%).
Inna Gavrilchik pointed out that online stores are not allowed to sell alcoholic beverages, low-alcohol drinks and beer, dietary supplements, veterinary medicines, weapons and ammunition, fireworks, poppy seeds, cigarettes, e-cigarette liquids, jewelry, coins from precious metals, and some other goods.
An online store is allowed to sell perishable products and sport nutrition if it has a retail facility for selling and storing such products or it belongs to the manufacturer of these products (regardless whether it has a retail facility).
