The number of shops in Poland has dropped by 1,800 in the last year. Most of those that closed were small grocery stores, independent chemists (drugstores), and kiosks, but also megastore supermarkets.
Poland had an estimated 99,400 shops at the end of 2020, according to NielsenIQ, a market data agency. While the downward trend in the number of shops has been present for a decade, it has now accelerated, with twice as many shops closing in 2020 as in the previous year.
Driving last year’s fall are small grocery shops – defined as below 40 square metres in floor space, of which 1,670 – or 5% of the total – disappeared across the country. Some 970 kiosks and 254 independent chemists also closed – respectively 11% and 3% of those in 2019 – as they struggled to compete with online sales as well as larger chains.
At the same time, discount stores and supermarkets with floor space between 40 and 100 square metres have been multiplying. In 2020 the number of medium-sized grocery stores increased by 600 outlets, with large national chains such as Żabka expanding to smaller towns.
Discount stores in Poland account for 37.6% of the groceries market – an increase by 2.7 percentage points compared with 2019. Some 121 branches of the Biedronka supermarket opened last year, closely followed by Lidl (50), Netto (14) and Aldi (10) stores.
“The results of the 2020 survey illustrate which sales channels were the most convenient for Poles in the time of the pandemic… [supermarkets, discounts and medium-sized grocery stores] perfectly responded to the need to shop close to home, while offering a wide product range,” said Konrad Wacławik, NielsenIQ’s head of retailer services for Poland.
As tastes evolve, with Poles buying more ecological and specialist food, there has also been a rise in independent craft shops. “In large cities, in new housing estates, there is a visible development of…proprietary bakeries, confectioneries, ice cream parlours, meat and fish shops,” said Wacławik.
Unsurprisingly, people also visited shops less often, according to Nielsen. Before the pandemic, Poles would shop at discount stores 13 times per month and at bakeries 14 times. In February 2021, these figures stood at 9 each, reported Gazeta Wyborcza.
It is not only small grocery stores that have been struggling. Last year, 17 of Poland’s 342 megastores also closed last year. Amid a trend of moving away from shopping at out-of-town megastores and small shops and towards smaller chains and discount stores, big chains have also been downsizing stores and laying off staff.
The drop mainly reflects British retailer Tesco selling off hundreds of its local supermarkets and several megastores as it prepares to exit the Polish market.
Retailers also say that the Sunday trading ban has hit them hard. Introduced in 2018 and expanded until reaching its full extent this year, it has pinched their bottom line as they lose tens of trading days each year.
Brick-and-mortar stores now also face mounting challenges from e-commerce giants, such as homegrown online marketplace Allegro as well as Amazon, which entered the Polish market with a surprise launch of its local website this week.
The new Polish platform will not only more directly serve consumers in Poland but is also expected to attract local sellers, who have been able to register since the company confirmed its arrival in January.
Main image credit: visueelamusement/Flickr (under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Maria Wilczek is deputy editor of Notes from Poland. She is a regular writer for The Times, The Economist and Al Jazeera English, and has also featured in Foreign Policy, Politico Europe, The Spectator and Gazeta Wyborcza.
