Closing stores on Sunday, according to QuarticOn analysts, will result in the e-commerce industry gaining an additional PLN 300 million in sales in 2018 alone.
Paweł Wyborski, the president of QuarticOn, says:
Year by year, the number of online shoppers is growing rapidly. The growth rate of Polish companies operating in the online sector is about 15-20% annually. The ban on Sunday is an opportunity for online business, which will surely force some stationary stores to become more deeply present on the Internet and at the same time will redirect a new stream of customers to them.
Poles, who have been shopping online so far, were most likely to buy products on Sunday in: clothing stores (15.8% share in e-commerce in this segment on a weekly basis), drugstores (15.7%), sports shops (15.4%) and furniture stores (14.9%). The lowest interest was recorded on Sunday in online pharmacies (8.3%) and construction shops (11.9%). These are the data collected on the basis of the analysis of online transactions from the last 6 months for several dozen leading online shops in Poland, which use the e-commerce recommendation engine.
On a weekly basis, Sunday sales currently provide the e-commerce industry with 13% of total revenues. Sunday is therefore already a very good trading day for e-commerce, and according to practitioners and experts, the best is just coming.
Łukasz Szczepański, the president of Merlin.pl, says:
Introduction of the regulations on the ban on Sunday is a chance to increase the turnover by at least a dozen or so per cent. We are now investigating the effectiveness of various marketing activities, which may further increase the pro-sales effect on days covered by the ban on trading in stationery stores. Deliveries on the same day in specific Polish cities are a strategically important issue for us. We would like to launch such a service for orders on all days of the week, not only on Sundays.
QuarticOn analysts estimate that the trade ban on twenty Sundays in 2018 will have a positive impact not only on the sectors that were less popular online but also on the frequency of online shopping on particular days of the week. Saturday for the e-commerce industry is a day when online consumers are not very active – however, if Saturday in traditional trade means queues in hypermarkets, buyers will probably change their consumption habits and will be more willing to buy products online on Saturday, in order to avoid crowds of shops.
The first non-commercial Sunday is already March 11. According to the act, in 2018 the ban will cover more than 20 Sundays. Moreover, the law provides for a gradual extension of the ban on trade on that day, and the total ban will enter into force in 2020. According to the Act, online trade on Sunday is legal.
