ZPP Newsletter
Warsaw, 22nd January 2019
Decreasing support for trade ban
“The number of people supporting the Sunday trade ban fell in December by 3 percentage points compared to the results of the November survey and currently amounts to 28%. As many as 71% of Poles do not want politicians to tell them how to spend their weekends. The percentage of complete opponents of limiting trade on Sundays in the December wave is the same as in November – 39% of Poles do not accept this change in any form,” comments professor Dominika Maison. “Aggregated data from both waves show that the Act has more opponents among residents of small and largest cities.”
First and foremost, it is quite noteworthy that the change introduced impacted consumer behaviour of a very limited group of people. Before the restrictions were introduced, 85% of respondents declared they did their shopping on a Sunday, with 78% of respondents doing in spite of the current limitations of trade on Sundays. Therefore, it may be concluded that the change affected only 1 in 14 Poles. This is also due to the nature of the most common purchases made on Sunday – 78% of people declare that they shop for groceries / food, while none of the other retail categories reached the level of 50%.
The results of the research indicate that after the ban on Sunday trade was introduced, over 60% of Poles still do shopping on these days. What has changes are the places where they do their shopping – on the so-called “trade-free Sundays”, these will usually be small stores (78% of respondents) and gas stations (44% of respondents), less often confectioners and bakeries (16%) and kiosks (3%).
- The greater the restrictions, the more opponents of the ban – especially when assessing the solution planned for 2020, it can be observed that the “contra” group is much larger than the “pro” group (54% vs. 32%).
- A group of complete opponents (people who do not accept restrictions in any form) is as large as it was in the first wave of the study and amounts to 39%. More opponents of the introduced changes in Sunday trade are observed among:
- Residents of small towns (up to 20,000 inhabitants) – it is possible that in smaller locations residents have fewer alternatives to attractions offered by large stores and shopping centres.
- Inhabitants of big cities (over 500,000 inhabitants) – probably long distances and heavy traffic cause more difficulties in shopping during the week or on Saturdays.
- People currently working in commerce than Poles who have never worked in this sector – it is possible that for some retail employees, these changes mean a reduction in earning opportunities.
“I think that the percentage of opponents of the trade ban will increase. Winter months are not as inviting to spend time outdoors as summer months,” sums up Cezary Kaźmierczak, president of the Union of Entrepreneurs and Employers. “We will appeal to the government to lift the ban and introduce two work-free Sundays for employees of all industries, not only trade, in the Labour Code. The current solution is discriminatory. Moreover, Polish trade is being slowly killed, as it is unable to cope with aggressive price promotions of discount stores.”
The second wave of the survey was carried out on a representative sample of Poles with a population of N: 1048 people.
Fot. PhotoMIX-Company/pixabay.com
