What happened to the famous electronics store “Player.ru” and how its management lives

The popular store “Player.ru” has suspended its work

One of the oldest online stores selling a variety of household appliances, Player.ru, unexpectedly stopped working. The site’s website is still active, but an announcement appeared on it: “For technical reasons, the store and customer support department are not working!” Customers also complain that the customer support department is not working.

At the same time, according to specialized publications, resumes of a number of company employees appeared on job search sites. They allegedly quit “one day.”

How did Player.ru appear?

The site appeared in 2001. It was created by a businessman Alexey Konyshev for sale, purchase or exchange of musical electronics: receivers, players, various accessories for them from famous brands. It is known that the 17-year-old boy, together with his father, was by that time trading such pieces of iron in one of the capital’s markets.

The Player.ru store notifies that it is not working yet

A little over ten years later, Forbes magazine included Player.ru in the ranking of the most valuable companies on the Runet with revenue of $60 million. At the end of 2016, the retailer entered the top 100 largest online stores according to Data Insight and was in 88th place with revenue from online sales of almost 1.3 billion rubles.

The site was extremely popular among buyers due to its extremely low prices, which a number of market experts then considered lower than purchasing prices. This practice led to repeated attacks on Player.ru from competitors who accused the store of unfair competition and smuggling. There were rumors that Konyshev was only the face of the company, and the real owners were supposedly located somewhere in the power vertical.

Why was Player.ru closed before?

Throughout its history, the scandalous store has gotten into trouble more than once. Back in the spring of 2013, representatives of the Ministry of Internal Affairs came to the office near the Avtozavodskaya metro station. The police presented a search warrant and went to the warehouse premises. According to one version, there they were looking for 70 iPhone smartphones stolen from the Apple store at the end of 2012.

Police officers in the building of the online store Pleer.ru.

In 2014, the Association of Internet Trade Companies (AKIT) recognized the online store “Player.ru” as not meeting the “AKIT consumer service standards.” During the test purchase, she discovered, in particular, that there was no information on the Player.ru website about return rules and specific delivery times.

In 2018, the site suspended operations as a result of an inspection conducted by the FSB of the Russian Federation. At that time, searches were carried out in a store in Moscow, and law enforcement officers confiscated accompanying documents for goods and electronics. The events took place after the public “exposure” of Player.ru by the co-owner of the DNS chain of stores, Dmitry Alekseev. He accused his competitor of “cash-out and smuggling of goods” schemes.

In 2019, the store’s operation was stopped by the Savelovsky District Court after a joint inspection by the Federal Tax Service and the FSB. Then the legal entity of the site, Aleko T LLC, was suspected of fraud with checks: from March 2018 to January 2019, the company allegedly swindled more than 1 million rubles past the cash register.

Which companies controlled Player.ru?

“Sunrise”

“Player.ru” is a company whose main feature, it seems, was the regular change of legal entities that managed the platform. Perhaps regular troubles with inspections and courts led to this practice.

“Player.ru” was popular due to low prices

The last legal entity on whose behalf the site operated was Voskhod LLC, established in 2021. Then the company transferred the rights to the PLEER trademark, and the new entity immediately began to generate profits: in the first year it brought in just under 1 billion rubles in revenue, in 2022 and 2023 – already more than 3 billion.

Its sole owner and CEO is Artyom Kobzar. At the same time, he does not give the impression of being a business shark: Voskhod is the only venture in his entrepreneurial career.

The top manager himself lives in Domodedovo and, at least until recently, rode the Korean business class sedan KIA Optima. Judging by his activity in telegram chats, recently the man has been actively interested in issues of relocation and obtaining a residence permit in other countries, as well as transactions with cryptocurrency.

“Aleko T”

Another company that operated the store before Voskhod was Aleko T, created in April 2017, apparently by the mother of the founder of Player.ru. Tatyana Konysheva.

Almost simultaneously with the stoppage of the work of Player.ru, the liquidation of the Aleko T company, which previously controlled the site, began.

This company owned the domain pleer.ru, as well as intellectual property rights – the PLEER trademark. A year after its founding, Aleko T demonstrated revenue comparable to Player.ru – 4.1 billion rubles. In 2019, it fell to 1.36 billion, and at the end of the year the company’s accounts were already minus 1.2 billion rubles. This metamorphosis occurred just after the decision of the Savelovsky District Court. Then, in 2020, the owner changed, and the company itself has not shown any signs of life since then.

By the way, shortly before the Player.ru website stopped working—on September 4 of this year—the Federal Tax Service decided to liquidate the company that had stopped submitting reports to the fiscal authority.

How the founders of Player.ru live

Alexey Konyshev is only 40 years old, he is a non-public person. It is known that the possible owner of a billion-dollar business is devout and actively helped monasteries and church organizations. Life.ru found out that the founder of the business empire is still registered with his mother in an ordinary panel high-rise building in the capital’s Lianozovo district.

Car registered to Alexey Konyshev

A prestigious crossover BMW X7 with a difficult number was registered to him, taken from the old Mercedes of Tatyana Konysheva’s mother. In addition to him, the businessman owned a premium crossover Acura MDX and a large SUV Honda Pilot. In addition, the family used a “land yacht” – a luxury Mercedes-Benz Viano minivan.

Officially in Russia, Konyshev is now the owner of the Abyssal company, which deals with real estate transactions. The legal address of the company is located in the building adjacent to the Player.ru office. In 2023, with revenue of 2.3 million rubles, the company’s accounts ended up with 11 million.

In addition, the businessman has an individual entrepreneur registered with activities related to agriculture. He is also listed as the chairman of the board of the dacha cooperative “At Gremyachi Klyuchi” in the Vladimir region.

By the way, it is possible that Alexey Konyshev is now in Kazakhstan – recently his full namesake with the same date of birth received a local Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN) there and was registered with a doctor.

It looks like Alexey Konyshev is seriously involved in agriculture

As for Tatyana Konysheva, judging by the FSSP archives, last year the woman owed about 150 thousand rubles. Small debts of several tens of thousands of rubles have arisen before. By the way, Tatyana Konysheva used modest cars: in her garage there was a budget Nissan Terrano, a GAZ-Sobol and a Chevrolet Aveo sedan. The only large SUV she used was the Nissan Pathfinder.