According to QuarticOn analysts’ calculations, the closure of shops on Sunday for the first time brought a lot of revenue to the e-commerce industry. Poles spent as much as 270 million PLN online on Sunday, March 11. The first non-commercial Sunday in the e-commerce industry recorded a nearly 40% increase in sales shares over the whole week compared to the average annual result. The first non-commercial Sunday was very good in the March ranking, despite the beautiful weather, which encouraged walks.
Paweł Wyborski, the CEO of QuarticOn, says:
On the first non-commercial Sunday there was a lot of promotions. Online traders prepared advertising campaigns encouraging online shopping and reminding about shop closures. Many companies prepared on this basis permanent, attractive discounts for customers. Promotions certainly contributed to a good result on the first Sunday without trade.
On the second Sunday free of trade, the turnover of e-shops again increased above the average – this time by 4% in comparison with the remaining Sundays. The pre-Christmas shopping traffic was reflected in higher online revenues on Sunday, March 25th – at that time, online sales were several per cent higher than the average for Sundays in the previous months.
Wyborski adds:
Looking at the current behaviour of Poles on the Internet, I predict that an additional increase in online turnover on non-commercial Sundays may reach even 7% this year. However, taking into account the differences in weekend trading between the first and second Sunday, it may be a signal that a ban on trade will not affect such a large increase in e-commerce sales as was expected after the first day of the ban.
According to Łukasz Szczepański, the president of Merlin.pl, e-commerce clearly gains on days covered by the ban on trade:
On these days we regularly record an increase in sales of about 10% above the average.
How do the March non-trade Sundays in Poland look like together? On a monthly basis, they provided the e-commerce industry with as much as 13% of total revenues. The increase in turnover on banned days was clearly noticeable in online and offline stores operating in parallel. It was these shops that noticed a 21% higher turnover on banned days. The possibility to trade online every Sunday has an impact on the opinions of Poles regarding the ban on trade. For more than 70% of Poles surveyed, the current trade ban is not a problem.
More than 35% of people from the no problem group declare that they usually do not shop on Sundays, about 12% believe that they can still buy the necessary items in places that were not covered by the ban. More than 25% of those surveyed said that the ban did not affect their lives.
