Retail industry in the face of pandemic-related challenges

The year 2020 posed a number of challenges for the retail industry in connection with the COVID-19 pandemic. Retailers had to cope with operating restrictions (among other things: limits on the number of customers allowed in stores at the same time, special shopping hours for the elderly) and a temporary lockdown imposed on shopping centres and hardware stores.

Out of concern for the health of employees and consumers, retail chains implemented maximum safety measures in their outlets, which made it necessary to incur additional costs of PLN 400 million and changes in the organization of the working system in stores and distribution centres. The retail sector made every effort – in these unusually difficult conditions – to maintain the continuity of the supply chain, thereby ensuring the provision of food and essentials to millions of Polish families. The traditional trade demonstrated high flexibility in adapting to the new consumer buying habits. 

The previous year was a period of accelerated digitization of trade. Many companies – in response to the restrictions and the resulting changes in consumer shopping habits, e.g. a partial outflow of customers to the e-commerce channel – intensified the implementation of innovative solutions in their stores.

The restrictions on operations and the additional operating expenses incurred due to the pandemic translated into decreases in the sales turnover of some companies, which – combined with close to 20 levies imposed on the retail industry – weakened the sector’s condition. 

Apart from pandemic-related issues, the year 2020 in trade was marked by the development of digital solutions, environmental challenges, as well as the discourse taking place in public space about Sunday trading and new fiscal burdens planned by the government for 2021, such as a retail tax, capacity fee, sugar fee and a fee on alcoholic beverages in small bottles of less than half a litre (so-called “małpki”), plastic tax, rain tax, carbon trace tax, tax on financial transactions, changes in CIT and VAT, digital tax, extension of the reprographic fee, etc.

Renata Juszkiewicz, Polish Organization of Trade and Distribution