Poland becomes the newest nation to receive its own Amazon marketplace in March 2021.
It’s vital to understand the situation first if you want to capitalize on this new growth and are wondering how to sell on Amazon Poland from overseas. Below, we go over every aspect of the Polish eCommerce market, including consumer habits, top items, and regional rivals.
How big is the Polish online market?
The first question you’re undoubtedly asking yourself when thinking about how to sell on Amazon Poland as an outsider is whether it’s even worthwhile.
The market is pretty healthy and viable, however obviously it relies on the specifics of your brand and product line. Poland offers a lucrative online opportunity for retailers from all over the world thanks to its 11th highest GDP in Europe and the 19th largest eCommerce market worldwide.
Polish online sales in 2017 totaled little under 22 billion euros, or 100 billion zloty. Nearly twice as much, or 11.64 billion euros, were made in 2019. Early forecasts for 2021 are also promising; they suggest that Polish eCommerce will grow, albeit not nearly as quickly as in 2020.
In Poland, 77% of people use the internet regularly, indicating that the country is accustomed to life online. Eighty percent of those users shop online.
Furthermore, 65% of online shoppers in Poland use smartphones to complete their transactions, demonstrating that they are at ease utilizing mobile devices for shopping. In fact, one out of every three zoty spent on eCommerce is made using a mobile device; by 2025, it’s expected that mobile will account for half of all eCommerce in the nation.
Polish Consumer Behaviour
Any foreign merchant thinking about entering the Polish eCommerce market should take into account its unique trends and subtleties, just like any other market.
What products do Poles buy online? The following are the top six product categories available on Polish eCommerce sites in order (ticket sales were left out to better represent the retail market):
- Clothing and accessories in vogue
- Footwear
- Media (books, music, and films)
- Fragrances and cosmetics
- Electronic devices
- Sporting goods
As you can see, fashion and clothing, which comprise half of the categories on the list, do well. The first companies to think about growing in Amazon Poland should be international clothes and fashion companies.
The same study also shed light on Polish consumers’ enduring fondness of internet shopping. It turns out that 75% of Polish online shoppers like the availability of 24/7 shopping, while 72% prefer to avoid driving altogether. Additionally, 68% of consumers prefer online shopping because they can take their time, and 66% believe online prices are more competitive than those in physical stores.
More specifically, how can shops attract Polish internet users? The top four incentives that Polish consumers want are listed below, together with the proportion of customers who mentioned them:
- Less expensive delivery (55%)
- Unrestricted door-to-door returns (53%)
- Reduced costs (53%)
- Promo codes (42%)
What Polish shoppers don’t want is equally useful. Long delivery times and expensive delivery were cited as the top issues with eCommerce in general by Polish consumers.
Delivery and shipping operations are essential to your success in the Polish online market because of these two pet peeves as well as the significance of lower shipping costs described above. It will be challenging to compete against neighborhood stores with nearby storage facilities from across the seas.
Utilizing a 3PL service in Poland, such as Amazon FBA, is your greatest option for satisfying Polish customers. The simplest approach to compete with locals for lower shipping costs and quicker shipping times is to ship from a Polish storage facility.
Leading Polish eCommerce Contest
Prior to the recent introduction of Amazon Poland, Polish customers primarily utilized the Polish-language edition of Amazon Germany to make purchases. Even still, Poland itself posed the biggest threat.
With more than 50% of the online market share, Allegro is regarded as the market leader in Poland for eCommerce. Allegro began as a traditional eBay-style auction site, but it has since developed into an all-purpose online department store that competes with Amazon.com. It’s worth investigating to determine what kind of price range shoppers would anticipate from your own products given how well-liked it is.
Ceneo, which is less of a marketplace and more of a price comparison service that enables direct purchases, is another rival that is important to be aware of. This website might give you a run for your money, especially in light of the fact that Polish shoppers identified low pricing as their top priority (above).
It will be difficult to compete with local brands on daily necessities given the markups you’ll need to add to your prices to make up for shipping your products to Poland. The ideal strategy for breaking into the Polish market is to sell goods that aren’t easily found in local shops, especially fashion items, which are the hottest product category, as we already discussed.
Start by adding listings to the Polish marketplace on Amazon PL.
You must first post your products on amazon.pl in order to be able to sell them in Poland. To do this, go to Seller Central and click on Sell Worldwide under the International Listing Setup section.
Uploading your listings is now possible. You have a choice between bulk uploading and individual uploads.
bulk product listing uploads to Amazon Poland
Go to First Steps under Set Up International Listing and choose the country of origin of your products, such as Germany, to upload numerous items at once.
You can enter your SKUs, save them, and then click Continue to get to the page where you can change the prices.
Watch out: Poland does not use the euro, exactly like Sweden. Your prices must therefore be entered in Polish zloty.
We advise using an Amazon feature if you haven’t done any additional research or aren’t an authority on currencies and currency rates. Based on your euro prices on this website, it will recommend costs in zloty.
Next, select Save and continue. Your listings will be available online in Poland in roughly 48 hours.
It’s crucial that you afterwards delink your products by selecting the corresponding button in Seller Central. One marketplace at a time can only have this link active. If you couldn’t link your listings to other markets, you wouldn’t be able to keep them.
manually submitting listings to the Polish Amazon marketplace
You can click on a single listing in the area where you manage your inventory.
You can now move on. Enter “Poland” at the bottom, save, and click continue.
Registration and license in Poland for the launch on Amazon.pl
You must take care of the packaging licensing before you may sell on Amazon.pl. This is due to the fact that registration is required in Poland beginning with the first product.
Therefore, before the transaction itself, registration must be completed in Poland. The only other options are to stop exporting to Poland or to stop selling there altogether.
Tax is obviously a problem as well because you need a Polish tax number to sell in Poland, in addition to packing.
suppliers of the Deputy system and services
There is a deputy system in Poland. This indicates that specific identity numbers—which are exclusively available to citizens of Poland—or a Polish representative are required for some registrations.
Therefore, for the majority of sellers, your first step should be to search for a deputy directly in Poland or to inquire about international registration services from a service provider like Certify in Germany.
Registration of packaging is required for sales in Poland.
You can only begin selling if your package has been officially registered. Then, of course, you must record how much you actually sold over the course of a year, or how much packing trash you ended up creating. On the basis of this, the expenses for the packing are then determined. There are also registration fees and fees for the service provider or representative. Overall, this is typically in the extremely low three-digit range.
Registering in advance the projected package quantity
However, while enrolling in advance, you should provide an estimate that is as exact as feasible. A penalty will be assessed if you declare too little, and if you declare too much, you will logically have overpaid.
You can use other marketplaces, such as the UK, as a guide for the volume of products sold and packaging manufactured, depending on the product and target demographic in each country.
Send details on sales and packaging.
Naturally, the service provider you choose for the registration will need certain information from you. This is your business, along with information about how to reach you and your sales: What proportion of the product is sold where?
The business channels can also have an impact; your service provider will be able to tell you just what data and information you need to supply.
Because some properties need to be registered separately, the type of product is also crucial. For batteries or electrical products, for instance, there are additional factors to take into account than only the packaging registration.
Registration of packaging and BDO number
After that, your service provider will apply on your behalf for the Polish registration number, commonly known as the BDO number. The number will be sent to you by letter.
Add the Polish registration number to the system of invoices.
Then, all information must be accurately recorded on bills.
The BDO number must be located on each invoice sent to Poland. Unfortunately, a lot of merchants are unaware of this. If you have already successfully registered but experience issues as a result of a formal error, it is even more unpleasant.
As a result, be sure to always include the registration number on the invoice and to set it up as a fixed component in the billing system.
Register the precise package amounts and pay the fees.
The only action left to take is to pay the correct sums to the authorities. By the way, these fees are negligible in comparison to the consequences of failing to register, so it is worthwhile!
Poland warehousing and sales tax registration
You must be registered for taxes in Poland even if you already take part in Amazon’s Central European Program for the German or other European marketplaces. Your products need to be registered in Poland even if you haven’t sold anything there before but are simply keeping them in a warehouse there.
Therefore, it is required of you to regularly submit an advance VAT return and register your items for VAT.
Amazon Poland: Initial challenges and constraints on amazon.pl
As of March 2021, Poland was recognized as the seventh European Amazon marketplace. The platform didn’t actually go online until August, and even then, not everything would function as intended straight now.
The Polish marketplace still has some features that are somewhat lacking for merchants.
On Amazon Poland, advertising and PPC are not yet possible.
Would you like to promote your goods? On Amazon.pl right now, things are still really hopeless. Coupons, advertisements, and PPC campaigns cannot yet be placed or set up.
Lightning offers and 7-day bargains are already visible on Seller Central, so there is yet some hope. Although clicking on them brings up an error page, all signs point to Amazon soon enabling these kinds of discounts.
Put the information and listings front
So what remains if you don’t have any means of product promotion? It is necessary to include the actual content.
Many sellers neglect to design the essence of what is being advertised in favor of concentrating too much on paid marketing and advertisements. You want your target audience to be persuaded on the product page and not quickly click away, thus a successful campaign must be built on a strong foundation of a good listing with good content.
text for search to be optimized
It is crucial that your SEO content be appropriately created when there is no advertising. In order for your target market to find your product, all text modules of your product listing need to be optimized.
Utilize A+ stuff properly.
A+ content should definitely be used if you have the chance to do so. Not only that, but the best design should be used for this A+ content. This article contains more details about the subject.
professionally done translation
Of course, language plays a key role in the listing’s content. Errors might appear very rapidly when using a subpar tool or an automatic translation, which can occasionally have major repercussions and even result in blocked listings.
As a result, you should without a doubt spend money having your texts professionally translated and adapted. With a service provider like eFly, you can also get expert keyword research, which aids in the text’s search engine optimization.
After Poland activates its advertising features, this will still be profitable. Since you still need to persuade customers to make a purchase on the product page, even while paid advertising bring them there, excellent content can do that.
Maintain a competitive edge
It pays to start off well and concentrate on high-quality texts and content from the very beginning, particularly in the early stages of a new market.
A lot of vendors mistakenly think that Amazon’s automatic translation is adequate. Therefore, you can distinguish yourself from the competitors with well-written texts.
Polish inventory management is lacking
The already tiresome subject of inventory presents another barrier.
Currently, inventory planning is not available in Seller Central.
Several shipping centers have existed in Poland for a while, but they are part of the German market and are consequently included in the DE inventory.
Conclusion
Selling on Amazon Poland might provide Amazon business a fantastic boost. You have the chance to drastically enhance your earnings by gaining access to a sizable new audience.
However, selling globally isn’t always simple, and you’ll encounter a number of fresh difficulties as a result of global expansion. This is why we advise speaking with a specialist and getting personalized guidance in advance. You will be the best equipped and able to take advantage of every chance if you do it this way.