eMAG was fined in Bulgaria with the amount of 2.6 million dollars by the Competition Council, the Romanian company having a local store opened in the field eMAG.bg, and the amount applied for the fine is one of the highest ever received by eMAG.
Investigations against eMAG in Bulgaria they started because of a competing store who complained that eMAG makes false advertising for certain products, which many Romanians also complained about, but the eMAG fine of 2.6 million dollars was not applied for this reason.
Those from eMAG I claim that the competing store store.bg filed complaints with the Bulgarian Competition Council and complained that the prices of some products, advertised as available with a 70% discount, from the eMAG.bg website have increased before a discount campaign and you probably remember the story from the preamble of Black Friday in Romania.
Both accusations of store.bg were rejected as unfounded by the Bulgarian Competition Council, and eMAG's fine of 2.6 million euros would have been applied to other promotional campaigns made by eMAG, with different goals.
More precisely, the eMAG fine of 2.6 million dollars would have been applied because eMAG would have wrongly advertised the return period for the purchased products, But and the ease with which products can be ordered from his store.
The Competition Council's explanations for applying these fines are quite stupid considering the initial complaints, and the eMAG fine of 2.6 million dollars will be contested, so it will most likely be reduced.
eMAG statement regarding the fine:
The statement regarding the percentage of discounts is part of the accusation made by eMAG's competitor, store.bg, and was rejected by the Bulgarian Competition Council, KZK.
KZK also rejected the competitor's accusation that some discounted products were not available on the website. The fine does not refer to these two situations complained about by the competitor and rejected by KZK
The sanction concerns other situations:
The first reason is that even in Bulgaria we offer a 30-day return period, while the standard is 14 days, and eMAG was sanctioned for informing customers that they benefit from a "double" return period and not literally 30 days.
The second topic was that I said in the promotion of a sales event "The easiest way to order. Millions of reasons to be happy" their interpretation being that it means millions of products on the site, and eMAG does not yet have millions of products listed in Bulgaria.
Separately from eMAG, two other local partner companies were fined $200.000 due to eMAG's promotional campaigns, and the Bulgarian branch of Fashion Days is also being investigated by the Competition Council.
The applied fines are based on the campaigns carried out by eMAG in Bulgaria between 2014 and 2015, the Romanian company receiving fines of over 500.000 dollars so far for the way it promoted itself in the neighboring country.
Although eMAG, like many other online stores in Romania, has been accused by many Romanians of increasing product prices before a discount campaign, in our country no similar fine has ever been applied for false advertising, of any kind.
