The Polish e-commerce market will reach a value of 92 billion zloty in 2022

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The Polish e-commerce market will reach a value of 92 billion zloty in 2022

In 2022, the value of online retail in Poland will reach 92 billion PLN. Of this, online stores will account for 61%, while the remainder will be attributed to e-commerce platforms. This is according to the report “Online Retail in Poland 2022,” just published by the research firm PMR. According to PMR Forecasts, the market shares of these two channels will not undergo any significant changes—the market structure has stabilized. E-commerce in Poland will continue to grow, but at a slower pace than before. The market has entered a phase of maturity.

The study showed that online stores are the dominant channel in Poland’s e-commerce market. According to the forecast presented in the report, in 2022, 61% of the value of Polish online retail will be generated by online stores, leaving e-commerce platforms with a 39% share. These proportions will remain virtually unchanged throughout the entire period covered by PMR Forecasts, i.e., through 2027.

Market Shares of Retailers and E-commerce Platforms in Poland

Karolina Szałas, senior retail market analyst at PMR and author of the report, notes:

The stabilization in the market shares of online stores and platforms that we are currently observing marks the end of a certain trend. Between 2017 and 2021, e-commerce platforms gradually increased their share of the market at the expense of online stores. This was a result of new players entering the market: among others, Empik, Morele, Amazon, Shopee, and Erli entered the market at that time. Another significant factor was the gradual expansion of product offerings by existing platforms, particularly by the market leader—Allegro. Our analysis shows that this trend has slowed: the market shares of platforms and online stores stabilized in 2022 and will not change significantly in the coming years. It can be said that the phase of market structure crystallization has come to an end. The Polish e-commerce market has become a mature market.

Karolina Szałas
, Senior Market Analyst

The outlook for e-commerce in Poland remains positive

However, the stabilization of the online retail market does not mean that its growth will slow down. PMR analysts forecast that the value of e-commerce in Poland will rise from 92 to over 141 billion zlotys between 2022 and 2027.

E-commerce still has significant growth potential in Poland, but we forecast that this growth will not be as rapid as what we have seen in recent years. Between 2018 and 2021, the value of e-commerce in Poland grew by an average of 26% annually, while for the period 2022–2027, we forecast an average annual growth rate of 11%. This slowing growth is another sign that the Polish e-commerce sector is entering a phase of maturity.

Karolina Szałas
, Senior Market Analyst

According to a PMR report, the factors driving the growth of e-commerce will also change in the coming years. In recent years, the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting shift of consumers toward online shopping have been a strong driver of growth for this sales channel in Poland.

E-commerce Forecast for Poland

In the coming years, however, growth will be driven, among other things, by the emergence of increasingly younger cohorts of buyers, for whom shopping online will become an increasingly natural activity. Another factor will be the continuous improvement of offerings by online stores and platforms. Online retailers will, among other things, introduce free and increasingly faster delivery options, as well as innovative services that enhance the shopping experience.

Karolina Szałas adds that the emergence of new players—who have not been active in these channels until now—will also serve as an additional driver of growth in both e-commerce channels in the coming years.

As for the e-commerce platform channel, plans to launch such platforms have been announced by, among others, the Super-Pharm chain of drugstores and pharmacies, the Media Expert retail chain, and the sports goods retail chains Intersport and 50Style.

Karolina Szałas
, Senior Market Analyst

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