Poland
Poland Online Shoppers Demand More Mobile Payments
Population
Poland had an estimated population of 37,846,611 as of the middle of 2020, according to UN data. Based on Worldometer elaboration of the latest UN data, the country had a population of 37,822,671 as of January 20, 2021, with 60.2% living in urban areas, mostly Warsaw. The median age of the population was 41.7 years. Poland's online population grew to 28.9 million by the end of 2019 from 27.8 million in 2018, according to the PPRO WECE Report.
E-commerce
Poland is a well-established market for e-commerce due to the high levels of internet and smartphone penetration. According to JPMorgan, a key feature of Polish e-commerce is sophisticated consumers who are well versed in online shopping. The average annual revenue per paying user increased to $645 at the end of 2020 from $621.45 in 2019, according to the PPRO WECE Report. Meanwhile, JPMorgan reported that Polish retail e-commerce sales rose to €9.9 billion ($12.01 billion) in 2020 from €10.6 billion ($11.9 billion) in 2019. Most cross-border e-commerce purchases by Poles are of products from China, the United States, and Germany.
Payment preferences
Most Polish shoppers prefer to pay by bank transfer (47%), followed by e-wallets, cards, cash, and other payment methods. For cashless payments, the major players are Visa, PayPal, Mastercard, Blik and online banking services.
Economy
According to IMF data, the country had a gross domestic product of $592.4 billion in 2019, which declined to $580.89 billion in 2020 due to the pandemic. As the economy continues to recover, Poland's GDP is expected to expand to about $634.9 billion in 2021.
Internet & mobile phone trends
According to Statista, the largest group of internet users in Poland in 2019 were people aged 16-44. According to Datareportal, there were 30.63 million internet users in January 2020, having increased by about 686,000 (+2.3 percent) since 2019, bringing the internet penetration rate to 81%. Meanwhile, smartphone penetration increased to 64% at the end of 2019 from 63% in 2018, according to the PPRO WECE Report.
Banking
According to data compiled by learnbonds.com, 72.85% of people in Poland had bank accounts in 2019, with 87% of them credit card holders, according to the PPRO WECE Report.