# сбыт



## Konstantinos

Хотел бы и сегодня, как уже сказал, обратить ваше внимание на ряд принципиальных моментов.

Первое. Мы видим, что для распространения наркотиков преступники всё чаще используют современные средства коммуникации, а в схемах поставок и сбыта так называемые бесконтактные способы расчётов и новые внебанковские формы платежей применяются всё шире и активнее.

Hi all. This is from a speech by Vladimir Putin, 16 ноября 2020 года, kremlin.ru.

Since поставок is genitive plural and сбыта and genitive singular (there is not plural for this word in Russian), I wonder whether a translation of сбыта in English (and Greek) should be considered plural. At least in Greek, it makes sense. Probably in English (sales) as well? Or a singular word (commerce or trade) should be better?

What is your opinion?

Заранее спасибо.


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## Vadim K

You can easily change this sentence to a similare one "_в схемах поставок и продаж_" where the word "_продаж_" (sales) is in the plural.


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## Awwal12

Yes. The thing is that сбыт is never plural in Russian - it's a general uncountable deverbal activity.


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## Konstantinos

Thank you both for your answers. 

As I understand, it is an one-direction noun: sale or selling, meaning that the buying / purchasing is ignored.

So the words trade or commerce cannot be used for the сбыт, since they are two-direction?


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## Awwal12

Konstantinos said:


> As I understand, it is an one-direction noun: sale or selling, meaning that the buying / purchasing is ignored.


Yes. It's basically conventrated on the agent having no items anymore (cf. the meaning "to get rid of" for "сбывать").


Konstantinos said:


> So the words trade or commerce cannot be used for the сбыт


Of course they can't.


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## nizzebro

Vadim K said:


> You can easily change this sentence to a similare one "_в схемах поставок и продаж_"


Only that I'd say this collocation sounds not so natural, as сбыт is not that making sales but rather finding buyers or otherwise dealing with the structure of sales.
 In the original sentence, поставки and сбыт are opposed as issues related to supply/delivery and those of finding new customers/agents/means of sale; both nouns are about the activity in general but поставки are plural just as there is no special singular noun for that.


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## Konstantinos

Awwal12 said:


> Yes. It's basically conventrated on the agent having no items anymore (cf. the meaning "to get rid of" for "сбывать").



I think the appropriate term for сбыт is "clearance sale":

a sale of goods at reduced prices to get rid of superfluous stock or because the shop is closing down


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## Rosett

*сбыт*
м.
1) эк. marketing, sale(s) (pl)
иметь хороший сбыт — meet a ready sale
иметь сбыт (для) — have a market (for)
легко находить себе сбыт — command a ready market; sell well
рынок сбыта (рд.) — market (for)
отдел сбыта — marketing department
2) (рд.; нелегальная торговля чем-л) traffic (in), dealing (in)
сбыт наркотиков — traffic in narcotics, drug traffic
сбыт краденого — dealing in stolen goods, receiver's business
*сбыт*
м.
1. Продажа чего-либо потребителю.
2. Незаконное распространение чего-либо, нелегальная торговля чем-либо.
*сбыт*
Syn: продажа, торговля, продажа с аукциона (торгов), реализация, отпуск, продажа товаров
Ant: покупка, закупка


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## nizzebro

Konstantinos said:


> I think the appropriate term for сбыт is "clearance sale":


No, what you are mentioning is распродажа. Сбыт is a general term for sales as an established process/system in respect to locations, customers, mediators and marketing strategy, while продажи is about sales as such, mostly in context of its amount. Продажа is either a single sale, or a current process of sales.


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## Vadim K

nizzebro said:


> Only that I'd say this collocation sounds not so natural, as сбыт is not that making sales but rather finding buyers or otherwise dealing with the structure of sales.
> In the original sentence, поставки and сбыт are opposed as issues related to supply/delivery and those of finding new customers/agents/means of sale; both nouns are about the activity in general but поставки are plural just as there is no special singular noun for that.



I don't agree. Both terms are not cleary defined and so everyone can give it as much meaning as they like.

The whole difference between the two terms "продажи" и "сбыт" is just the fantasy of each particular author.

So I suggest using the definition given in the Wiktionary сбыт — Викисловарь.

As for the original sentence, I think that this term was used for one reason only. And this reason is the article 228.1 of the Russian Criminal Code where this term is used for separating the criminal penalty for the sales of drugs from the criminal penalty for their consumption only. The criminal penalty for the drug consumption is defined by the article 228 of the Russian Criminal code where the term "сбыт" is not used. Those who prepared the speech for Putin were representatives of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (МВД), that is, people who are far from economics but close to the criminal law.


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## pimlicodude

Vadim K said:


> I don't agree. Both terms are not cleary defined and so everyone can give it as much meaning as they like.
> 
> The whole difference between the two terms "продажи" и "сбыт" is just the fantasy of each particular author.
> 
> So I suggest using the definition given in the Wiktionary сбыт — Викисловарь.
> 
> As for the original sentence, I think that this term was used for one reason only. And this reason is the article 228.1 of the Russian Criminal Code where this term is used for separating the criminal penalty for the sales of drugs from the criminal penalty for their consumption only. The criminal penalty for the drug consumption is defined by the article 228 of the Russian Criminal code where the term "сбыт" is not used. Those who prepared the speech for Putin were representatives of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (МВД), that is, people who are far from economics but close to the criminal law.


Vadim, Multitran has "illegal sale" for this word, as one of its translations at least. Is сбыт usually illegal?


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## Vadim K

pimlicodude said:


> Vadim, Multitran has "illegal sale" for this word, as one of its translations at least. Is сбыт usually illegal?



If you look at the Wiktionary сбыт — Викисловарь, you will see that there are two basic definitions for the term "_сбыт_" there.

1. The same as "_sales_"
2. The same as "_illegal sales_".

The second meaning comes from the Russian criminal code where this term is used in the article 228.1 about the sales of drugs. And there it certainly has a meaning of "_illegal sales_". 

So I would say that "_сбыт_" is usually a legal sale.


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## nizzebro

Vadim K said:


> The whole difference between the two terms "продажи" и "сбыт" is just the fantasy of each particular author.


Pretty straightforward; do you mean that each author has their own specific fantasy, or maybe there are at least groups of them that share one and the same fantasy?  
No objection that both terms are about sales, but in each case as viewed from a slightly different perspective.
Compare увеличение продаж and увеличение сбыта (the latter sounds not so definite), or, наладить сбыт and наладить продажи (again, in the latter case it is not the most natural option): продажи are essentially acts of sale that are mostly expected to be increased in number, while сбыт is a domain that refers to many factors - especially considering that we sell not pastry within our district but, say, machine components all over the world.

 There is also a newly borrowed term маркетинг - newly, because in Soviet time there was no need in маркетинг or even продажи in terms of their increase - because of planned economy, but, they still had departments called отдел сбыта. Why do you think they had?

And there's no point to bind it to the criminal area - it relates only to the verb сбывать and then only partly.


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## Vadim K

nizzebro said:


> Pretty straightforward; do you mean that each author has their own specific fantasy, or maybe there are at least groups of them that share one and the same fantasy?



Something in between, I suppose. Usually it's some Russian economics professors who have never worked in the real economy and who start posting their fantasies on the internet making their assumptions out of thin air. And then other persons who have never had any economic experience read these guys and think "Wow, I finally understand the difference". 

I am an economist, not a sociologist, so unfortunately I do not know whether such a fantasy can be called individual or shared one.


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## nizzebro

Vadim K said:


> I am an economist, not a sociologist


Great, so maybe you could explain why there were departments called отдел сбыта at Soviet enterprises? No free market, fixed prices. What were they doing there?


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## pimlicodude

nizzebro said:


> Great, so maybe you could explain why there were departments called отдел сбыта at Soviet enterprises? No free market, fixed prices. What were they doing there?


They were "offloading" goods.


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## nizzebro

pimlicodude said:


> They were "offloading" goods.


Yes, like that; I'm bad with trade but at least could say that they were coordinating supplies from the factory or whatever to clients. Anyway, since there were no sales there in the sense of the free market, we could say that сбыт is different from продажи in that it does not directly imply money; it is about how to make your products taken, and продажи is primarily about how to get money for your products. Сбыт has probably some common with маркетинг, if to exclude everything related to competition on the market like advertising, promotion and positioning.

P.S. Suppose you produced a lot but nobody needs your product anymore, or, they need, but you produced much more than your local market could eat - and, there is no way to deliver it to those who are outside: either they do not need it, or the transportation is too expensive, or there is some embargo; you cannot occupy your warehouse for a long time because you need room for anything else or because the product is perishable. What you get in such case is exactly "проблема сбыта". It has to do with money, of course, because you spent some for raw materials and workers, but not with sales as such - as you cannot sell at all; and the collocation "проблема продаж" is unnatural as it means nothing as a general notion - you could have a "проблема кадров" - that of staff who don't know to sell.


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## Vadim K

nizzebro said:


> Great, so maybe you could explain why there were departments called отдел сбыта at Soviet enterprises? No free market, fixed prices. What were they doing there?



Sure, I can. They were doing the same functions that a logistic department nowadays performs for outbound logistics.


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## Vadim K

nizzebro said:


> Yes, like that; I'm bad with trade but at least could say that they were coordinating supplies from the factory or whatever to clients. Anyway, since there were no sales there in the sense of the free market, we could say that сбыт is different from продажи in that it does not directly imply money; it is about how to make your products taken, and продажи is primarily about how to get money for your products. Сбыт has probably some common with маркетинг, if to exclude everything related to competition on the market like advertising, promotion and positioning.



I think I figured out what the problem might be. You are probably mixing up the concept of "_сбыт_" that existed in the USSR, which had no market economy, with the modern concept of "_сбыт_" in the country where a market economy exists. The "_cбыт_" of USSR is "_outbound logistics_" now. And "_сбыт_" of modern Russia now refers rather to "_sales_", as stated in the Wiktionary.


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## nizzebro

Vadim K said:


> I think I figured out what the problem might be. You are probably mixing up the concept of "_сбыт_" that existed in the USSR, which had no market economy, with the modern concept of "_сбыт_" in the country where a market economy exists. The "_cбыт_" of USSR is "_outbound logistics_" now. And "_сбыт_" of modern Russia now refers rather to "_sales_", as stated in the Wiktionary.


I'm not mixing anything, I was only proceeding from your assertion that продажи and сбыт are referring to the same notion, while they aren't, then and now; see the addendum in #17 - this is my maximum of wording about that.

I wouldn't recommend anybody to rely on the English Wiktionary in respect to Russian words, because their definitions are often not precise and sometimes even misleading.


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## Vadim K

nizzebro said:


> I'm not mixing anything, I was only proceeding from your assertion that продажи and сбыт are referring to the same notion, while they aren't, then and now; see the addendum in #17 - this is my maximum of wording about that.
> 
> I wouldn't recommend anybody to rely on the English Wiktionary in respect to Russian words, because their definitions are often not precise and sometimes even misleading.



Ok. Then I would not recommend you to argue about issues on which you just have a superficial knowledge with people who have dedicated their entire professional lives to these issues. This is my final wording about that.


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## nizzebro

Vadim K said:


> Ok. Then I would not recommend you to argue about issues on which you just have a superficial knowledge with people who have dedicated their entire professional lives to these issues.


I didn't argue with them. And as well I didn't argue with your answer in #18 - which is fine, but the issue is that we still have the term продажи and specifically отдел продаж - but, of course, I won't argue with that, as I have no knowledge.
I'd only suppose that for those who _only sell_, there is probably no much difference, unlike for those who _produce_: "у нас нет продаж" might be only a temporary state of affairs; but "наша продукция не имеет сбыта" is a much more significant problem (note - it is not quite the same as 'не находит спроса').


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