Poles "go" online shopping not only for fashion products, electronics and home furnishings, but also for the most necessary everyday products – food, household chemicals and medicines. As many as 48% of respondents confirm that they shop for groceries online.
– This is a significant increase compared to last year (+19 percentage points), and a huge increase compared to the situation before the pandemic, when e-grocery buyers constituted less than 5% of Internet users – writes eIzba.
Poles are also increasingly bold in expanding their list of shopping destinations
It's not just the variety of content in digital shopping carts that is growing rapidly. Poles are also increasingly bold in expanding the list of shopping places they use, including foreign ones.
Why? One reason is inflation (82% of cross-border buyers started buying abroad due to price increases), but not only that. Consumers point to many advantages of cross-border shopping. In addition to favorable prices, these include trust in foreign brands, a huge selection of products, increasingly better conditions and delivery times to Poland, access to unique products not available on the Polish market, as well as equivalents of expensive brands at attractive prices. People who buy in foreign e-shops, applications or platforms most often do so 1-3 times a month (76%), usually spending between PLN 250 and 500.
Half of those who buy abroad also buy in countries outside the European Union
As the report of the Chamber of Electronic Commerce shows, half of the buyers abroad also buy in countries outside the European Union, mostly using shopping platforms such as Amazon, AliExpess, as well as Shein and Temu, where 17% and 14% of the surveyed cross-border buyers, respectively. customers – as many as 71% admit that they had some problem with the purchase. Most often, it is related to the handling of returns, but also to the quality of the products themselves.
These are disturbing data, especially if we take into account that the most popular category purchased outside the EU is currently, according to respondents, children's products. An additional aspect is the protection of e-shoppers' data. 59% of Internet users admit that, in their opinion, they are not as well protected as on European platforms and e-shops. Knowledge about how they are processed and by whom ¼ of customers have.
– The report's results show what we as an organization have been noticing for a long time. Chinese platforms are developing dynamically on the Polish and European markets. The sudden success of Chinese e-commerce giants is largely related to their direct-to-consumer (DTC) business model, which has helped them build a strong global position, especially in the clothing retail market. The direct sales model allows ultra fast-fashion giants to benefit from: taxes and customs duties, disproportionately lower terminal fees, enforcement of regulations and market supervision, and avoiding procedures that enable product safety to be examined by authorized bodies (including, in particular, trade inspection). As part of the e-Izba's long-running campaign: Same Start, we carefully analyze the situation and realize that it is necessary to ensure fair and equal taxation of parcels sent directly to consumers in the EU, ensure effective enforcement of EU regulations and market surveillance in relation to Chinese ultra-fast fashion players, closing legal loopholes used by Chinese entrepreneurs operating in the direct sales model, enforcing obligations arising from the GDPR, as well as taking all actions to ensure the safety of goods and consumer protection," says Patrycja Sass-Staniszewska, president of the Chamber of Commerce Electronic.
