Ecommerce Trends and Statistics in Poland, 2026 (With Sources)

Ecommerce statistics in Poland travel around the web without a year, a methodology or a base — and a number missing all three tells you very little. That is why every figure below carries the report, the edition year and the group surveyed (for example “buyers in the last month, N=1,444”), rather than a shared bibliography at the end. Where studies disagree, we say so instead of picking the more convenient version — it is most visible in the discrepancies between Statistics Poland (Główny Urząd Statystyczny, GUS) and Eurostat. Most of the data comes from three sources: the survey Gemius “E-commerce w Polsce 2026” (E-commerce in Poland 2026) — a CAWI study of 1,874 completed interviews, collected between 14 and 22 July 2026 — the GUS flash report on the information society, and Eurostat's tables on e-commerce of enterprises and individuals. For what actually counts as e-commerce before the numbers, see what is e-commerce.

How many people in Poland buy online

According to GUS (flash report of 21.10.2025), in 2025 69.7% of people aged 16–74 bought something online in the last 12 months, against 67.4% a year earlier. The difference between town and country is clear: in towns 73.8% bought, in rural areas 63.7%. In Eurostat's isoc_ec_ib20 dataset (updated 17 April 2026) the figure for Poland in 2025 is practically the same — 69.73% — against 73.56% for the whole European Union (EU27). Don't read that agreement as two independent confirmations. National statistical offices collect Eurostat's data on individuals' internet use with the shared Eurostat questionnaire — in Poland, GUS — so both numbers come from the same survey and differ only in rounding.

Gemius counts it differently and gets a different result, because it asks a different group. The 2025 edition of its “E-commerce w Polsce” report says: “78% of respondents declare buying online at all, and 77% in Polish online shops”, on a sample of 1,629 internet users aged 15 and over. That doesn't contradict GUS and Eurostat: the population is different (internet users aged 15+, not all residents aged 16–74) and so is the question (“ever”, not “in the last 12 months”). The 2026 edition gives no such headline indicator at all — the authors say outright that this time they concentrate only on people who buy online, leaving out internet users who never do. So the “78%” comes from the 2025 edition, not from the latest study. What the 2026 edition describes is intensity: according to Mediapanel data, 93% of internet users visit shopping sites and apps every month and 53% every day, and nearly four in five people with e-commerce experience made purchases in the month before the survey. When someone quotes “78% of Poles buy online” without the report's year, check which edition the number really comes from.

Gemius and GUS do not publish reports every month, so the edition date is part of the information, not a formality. The 2026 edition of the GUS “Information society in Poland” was not yet available when we collected this data — the 69.7% cited comes from the 2025 edition, published on 21.10.2025. If you find a newer edition, check whether the number has actually changed before you pass it on.

Another series is about where Poles buy: in the 2025 edition of the Gemius report, 41% of Polish internet users bought in foreign online shops, against 36% a year earlier. Quote that number only with the edition year. The 2026 report does not contain this question in the same form (purchases on Chinese platforms are described separately), so there is no newer value, and we don't combine two different years under one number.

Ecommerce trends on the seller side: how many Polish businesses sell online

GUS reports that in 2024 18.3% of enterprises sold electronically — 12.9% through their own website or app, 10.2% through online marketplaces and 3.3% through EDI (sales generated automatically in computer-to-computer communication, with no separate order placed by a person). Eurostat's isoc_ec_eseln2 table (updated 15 June 2026) covers enterprises with 10 or more persons employed in all activities except agriculture, forestry, fishing, mining and quarrying, and the financial sector; data on enterprises are also collected by national statistical offices with the shared Eurostat questionnaire. Its "2025" column describes sales made in 2024, because the survey asks about the previous calendar year, and it gives slightly different values: 18.55% of Polish enterprises with e-commerce sales against 23.59% in the EU27; 10.69% (PL) against 9.31% (EU27) sell through a marketplace, and 13.18% (PL) against 17.72% (EU27) through their own website or app. Neither source explains the discrepancies between GUS (18.3% / 12.9%) and Eurostat (18.55% / 13.18%) on a seemingly identical question. Quote the source next to each number and don't average them.

The broad indicator includes EDI, where orders are generated automatically in computer-to-computer communication and nobody places an individual order. Leave it out and you get enterprises with web sales — through a website, an app or a marketplace — at 16.81% in Poland against 20.69% in the EU27 (isoc_ec_eseln2, "2025" column). The gap between the two indicators in Poland (1.74 percentage points) is made up of enterprises that sell electronically only via EDI; all enterprises with EDI-type sales, including those that also sell on the web, come to 3.34% in Poland. When someone quotes "18.55% of Polish firms sell online", check whether they mean e-commerce sales in general or web sales. The two indicators overlap, but they are not the same.

Presence on the internet is another measure. According to GUS, in 2025 67.5% of enterprises had their own website and 47.8% a social media account — far more than the share of firms that actually sell electronically (18.3%). For many firms a website or a social profile is a business card and a contact point, not a transaction channel; the gap says nothing about the electronic-sales indicator itself.

Web sales as a share of turnover, and who buys most of it

A separate Eurostat table, isoc_ec_evaln2 (updated 27 February 2026), measures not how many enterprises sell online but how much of their turnover it brings: web sales are 6.66% in Poland against 8.39% in the EU27 ("2025" column, 2024 sales). In both cases that is a small part of total turnover, not the main source of revenue.

The structure of those sales differs strongly, though: in Poland 66.32% of the value of web sales is B2B and B2G transactions and only 33.68% is B2C; in the EU27 the split is closer to half and half — 51.78% against 48.20%. Contrary to the common association with consumer shopping, most of the value of Polish enterprises' web sales therefore goes to trade between businesses — with the caveat that these are enterprises with 10 or more persons employed, not the whole market.

Marketplaces versus own online shops

For comparison, among EU27 enterprises with web sales, 85.65% sell through their own website or app and 45.0% through a marketplace; 14.35% sell only through marketplaces (isoc_ec_eseln2, "2025" column). Measured by value, marketplaces account for 15.54% of EU27 web sales, up from 14.55% a year earlier, while own sites and apps bring in 84.46% (isoc_ec_evaln2). Across the EU27, nearly half of web sellers use a marketplace, then, but most of the money still flows through their own channels. Don't put the two figures side by side as one indicator: one counts enterprises, the other counts euros.

Marketplaces lead in reach among shoppers, ahead of every specialised category of shops. Gemius Mediapanel — a passive measurement panel, not a survey, averaged over July 2025 – June 2026 (PDF report, p. 118, read 2026-10-05) — shows that the category “sales platforms and multi-category retail” (marketplaces of the Allegro type) has a reach of 89% a month and 37% a day on average. The report itself stresses that the other categories cover only specialised shops; sales platforms and multi-category retail are a league of their own. Marketplaces also account for 63% of all time spent in the “Online shopping” category (apps and web together), although what is measured is browsing, not purchases. The strongest single brand remains Allegro: 85% spontaneous brand awareness (72% as the first mention), nearly 19 million users a month and over 5.5 million a day. After marketplaces comes fashion (clothing, footwear, accessories) with a reach of 65% a month and 18% a day and 23% of the category's time — more than half of the time spent in specialised e-shops alone, with a clear lead among women (77% monthly reach against 53% among men). Electronics and appliances reach 56% a month (7% a day) and health and beauty 54% (8%); all other categories named in the report reach fewer than a third of internet users a month.

One caveat is necessary: this is reach and time data from a passive panel, not a share of sales value or of the number of transactions. “89% monthly reach” does not mean “89% of purchases go through a marketplace” — it is the share of people who visited such a site or app in a given month, whether or not they bought anything. The only number on sales value that we have comes from Eurostat and measures something narrower: marketplaces account for 23.35% of the web-sales value of Polish enterprises (against 15.54% in the EU27). That is a real share of turnover, but only of the web sales of the firms covered by the survey, not of the whole e-commerce market. Don't put these two numbers (89% reach and 23.35% value) side by side as one indicator. Keep in mind, too, that the enterprise figures leave out businesses with fewer than 10 persons employed and private sellers, both of which matter on marketplaces.

How Poles buy and find products: phone, parcel locker, social media, AI

The phone is, for most buyers today, simply the shop. Gemius 2026 describes the purchase journey: 58% of respondents most often finish their purchases on a phone, 44% of them in an app, and 35% on a computer. 84% of buyers used parcel lockers in the past year — not an extra delivery option but a form you have to account for already when designing checkout and the logistics offer, whether or not it is set as the default.

Social commerce is a minority, but not a margin. According to the Gemius press release, 20% of respondents bought directly through a social platform in the last year. In the report itself, question SC1 gives 18% among social media users who have ever bought online (N=1,607), and the report's comment gives a range of 18–20%. The 2025 edition gave a similar but not identical indicator: 19% of online buyers declared “buying on social media”. The questions are worded differently in the two editions, so treat it as a similar order of magnitude year on year, not a strict comparison of the same metric.

Buyers more often search for a product in the search box of a shop or platform than in Google. Question K9 in Gemius 2026 (base: buyers in the last month, N=1,444) concerns what helped the respondent find and choose a product in the last order. In front are the search boxes inside shops and sales platforms — 40% of mentions — ahead of general internet search engines such as Google (32%) and free browsing or scrolling through offers (28%). Deliberate searching on social media was named by 13% of respondents, stumbling on social media posts by 9%. Routine purchases without searching (“a return to a proven product”) the report describes as “every fifth purchase” — that is the report's wording, not a calculated percentage, so we give it in that form.

Among those who used a search engine in this journey (N=571, question K10), 19% read a ready AI summary and 13% move on to the search engine's AI mode and continue searching there. The report does not say to what extent these groups overlap, so we don't add them up. “AI tools” themselves as an element of the path to the last purchase were named by 10% of buyers in K9. Across the whole survey 65% of respondents declare using AI-based tools, but 71% do not want to entrust artificial intelligence with making purchase decisions on its own. AI helps search and summarise, then, but according to the respondents themselves it should not decide for the buyer. Men use AI summaries in search more often than women (22% against 15%).

For checkout the conclusion is simple: design the “phone + parcel locker” scenario first, and treat desktop and courier delivery as the alternative, not the other way round.

Trust: what worries buyers and what decides the choice of seller

Online shopping is easy for buyers, but not stress-free. 84% of buyers find it easy, and at the same time 42% fear a dishonest seller and 34% fear payment fraud. Two factors clearly win when choosing a particular seller: a low product price (42%) and free delivery (37%). These numbers come from three questions with different bases: the rating of ease (O1) and the concerns (K1a) are counted in the report among people who have ever bought online (N=1,825), and the factors in choosing a shop (K7) among those who bought in the last 12 months (n=1,768) (PDF report, pp. 55–56 and 62, read 2026-10-05). The conclusion for a shop is clear: price and the cost of delivery decide the choice of seller, but lack of trust in the transaction itself is a separate barrier. In the declarations it weighs as much as price: 42% of buyers report fear of a dishonest seller, exactly as many as name a low price as a reason for choosing. You remove it with clear terms and conditions, visible contact details and a safe payment — a lower price will not remove it.

These are declarations from a survey, not transaction data: the report says what respondents consider important and what they worry about, not what actually changes their decision at the moment of payment. It is a useful directional signal for the whole market, but it will not replace an A/B test in your own shop if you want to know what changes your conversion.

Cart abandonment — a number that's easy to misread

The Baymard Institute publishes a figure that puts the average cart-abandonment rate at 70.22% — "an average calculated based on 50 different studies containing statistics on ecommerce shopping cart abandonment" (baymard.com/lists/cart-abandonment-rate, "Last updated: September 22, 2025"). That is an average of studies by different companies, from different years and with different methods, not a single Baymard measurement. Another page from the same institute gives a different number for a similar but not identical measurement: "70.19%", "tracked … for 14 years" (baymard.com/research/checkout-usability). Quote one of the two pages with its own number — don't average them and don't present them as the same measurement.

The figure doesn't mean that seven in ten carts are lost sales. On the same page Baymard says that a large part of abandonments comes from the natural way people browse shops: looking at offers, comparing prices, saving products for later. The cart then works as a shopping list or a price notebook, with no intention of finishing the transaction in that session. We break down the remaining reasons — extra costs, checkout length, forced account creation — with a source for each in cart abandonment, and don't repeat that table here so that two articles don't carry two slightly different versions of the same numbers.

What these statistics won't tell you about your store

Every number above is an average or a declared answer from a sample your store almost certainly wasn't part of. The average abandonment rate, the average share of mobile purchases or the average reach of marketplaces won't tell you whether your checkout works, whether your target group buys on a phone or whether your category sells better on Allegro or in your own shop. Industry data is good for one thing: checking whether your own figure sits in the normal range or clearly stands out. What to fix comes from your own analytics — abandonment by device, the checkout step where most people leave, and the share of orders from returning customers. For example, the market-wide 58% of buyers who most often finish a purchase on a phone won't tell you why your own shop gets clearly fewer orders from phones. Whether that is a feature of your target group or a problem with the mobile version of checkout, only the abandonment rate by device will show.

We don't give a value for the Polish e-commerce market in złoty, because none of the sources used here publish one in a methodology that can be compared year on year; the approximations that circulate online usually lose their year and the definition they came from along the way. For the same reason we don't give the share of any payment method in the value of online transactions — our sources describe reach and buyers' declarations, not the split of payment value. The closest figure is the share above — 6.66% of enterprise turnover from web sales — and it measures a share, not a total. If you are working out the full cost of running a shop, including marketing, logistics and maintenance, use figures for your own project rather than an averaged market. Our online store cost report collects real Polish market rates, and the e-commerce TCO calculator estimates the cost of running your store over several years, not just the build.