After the boycott of major retail chains held in Serbia on Friday, January 31, the Consumer Protection Association Efektiva has called for a new boycott. Efektiva urged consumers to boycott five large retail chains: Deleze, which operates “Maxi” and “Shop&Go”, Mercator, which owns “Idea” and “Roda”, as well as “DIS”, “Lidl”, and “Univerexport”. The boycott is scheduled to take place from Monday, February 10, to Friday, February 14.
Efektiva states that this new call for a boycott is supported by consumer associations Prosperitet from Novi Sad and the Republic Consumer Union from Belgrade.
“Since the previous boycott on Friday, January 31, and following a public call to traders to take concrete steps to reduce prices, some of the boycotted traders have actually increased their prices. This demands a new consumer uprising, which will be turned into a five-day boycott,” they said.
If there is no concrete response after this boycott, they warn that they will, together with consumers, decide on a longer-term boycott of individual traders to force them to lower prices.
According to the Tax Administration data, on Friday, January 31, the number of fiscal receipts issued was 865,758, which is a 25% decrease compared to the previous day. On Thursday, January 30, the number of receipts issued was 1,157,985.
They compared this with Friday, January 17, when the number of receipts issued was 1,103,159, and Thursday, January 16, when it was 1,095,561. On the day of the boycott, the number of receipts issued was about 20% lower compared to these two days.
Additionally, on the day of the first boycott, the total revenue from Deleze (Maxi and Shop&Go), Mercator (Roda and Idea), DIS, Univerexport, and Lidl amounted to 911,110,569 dinars.
The previous day, Thursday, January 30, these retail chains generated revenue of 1,334,431,914 dinars. This means that on the day of the boycott, compared to the previous day, revenue was about 32% lower.
