Dark clouds over e-shops. Record debt in the industry

Unpaid trade liabilities amount to nearly PLN 9 billion; while wholesale and retail improve the overall condition of the sector, it is burdened by e-commerce, whose unpaid debt increased at the end of September this year. to over PLN 446 million – BIG InfoMonitor reported on Friday.

As reported by the authors of the report, struggling with significant financial stratification and overdue debt amounting to PLN 9 billion, trade is today one of the industries with the highest amount of overdue debt in the country. They pointed out that although wholesale and retail improve the overall condition of the sector, it is burdened by e-commerce, whose unpaid debt is still growing and at the end of September 2025 amounted to over PLN 446 million. “Will the key sales period bring a rebound or will it deepen the financial arrears of e-commerce?” – ask the authors of the report, referring to Black Friday on November 28.

They pointed out that although the total amount of unpaid liabilities of retailers of over PLN 3.2 billion and wholesalers of PLN 4.5 billion remains alarming, BIG InfoMonitor and BIK data indicate that both branches of trade have entered the path of financial stabilization. The wholesale company recorded a decrease in arrears by more than PLN 20 million y/y, and the number of unreliable debtors decreased from 24,000 to 24,000. 33 to 21 thousand 895. They estimated that overdue liabilities in retail decreased by over PLN 200 million, and a total of over 4,000 companies disappeared from the list of unreliable debtors.

In their opinion the trend of improving the payment situation in traditional channels contrasts sharply with the situation in e-commerce (PKD 4791Z). Although its share in the overall level of outstanding debt is smaller, this sector shows disturbing dynamics – even in the face of a decline in the number of unreliable debtors from 5,000 to 5,000. 667 to 5 thousand 465, the outstanding debt increased by over PLN 14 million, or 3.3%. year to year. They pointed out that while traditional trade is recovering, e-commerce is struggling with the growing burden of arrears.

“This financial crisis at the threshold of the sales period calls into question the stability of the fastest-growing branch of trade and poses an important question whether it will recover this time. Since September 2022, problems have been increasing – outstanding e-commerce liabilities have increased by over PLN 112 million (34%) since then,” the report said.

The president of BIG InfoMonitor, Paweł Szarkowski, quoted in the release, emphasized that while the retail and wholesale sectors are showing improvement in their financial condition, the state of e-commerce is of greatest concern. “The increase in the total amount of outstanding debt, despite the decrease in the number of unreliable debtors, indicates that large online trading platforms may face significant margin pressure. The financial stability of these entities may be strongly dependent on the sales results achieved during key promotion periods, such as Black Week,” he said. He added that high competition on the online market forces lower prices and increasingly faster delivery and return handling, which generates high operating costs. He noted the growing popularity of deferred payments (BNPL); so far, 2.97 million customers have used these services, completing 143 million transactions.

The BIG InfoMonitor report “Financial culture of Poles. Is honesty still valuable? Attitudes of consumers and entrepreneurs in the world of finance” shows that 75 percent companies experienced unethical situations in business. It was noted that in retail and online trade these phenomena are particularly severe and constitute a direct burden on margins. “As many as 33 percent of respondents have encountered customers who placed an individual order with payment on delivery, but did not collect the product. This generates logistics and storage costs without any income. At the same time, 29 percent of entrepreneurs operating in the trade experienced attempts at fraud in the complaint process – e.g. a product purchased elsewhere was returned or deliberately destroyed by the customer,” the report said.

Szarkowski said that an interesting contrast appears in the assessment of entrepreneurs themselves. Although the majority – as he pointed out – condemn fraud, 3 percent respondents consider such practices as late repayment of financial obligations to the state or deliberate lowering of service prices in order to eliminate competition to be completely acceptable. In his opinion, this small but significant percentage may indicate a persistent element of “business cunning” or a desperate attempt to save one's own poor financial condition in an unethical way – said the president of BIG InfoMonitor.

Experts emphasize that entrepreneurs, especially e-shops, must focus on customer expectations, which directly affect their financial liquidity. Referring to the report prepared by Gemius “E-commerce in Poland 2025”, customers clearly indicate what would encourage them to make more frequent purchases – lower delivery costs (47%), lower prices (46%) and discount codes (43%). At the same time, they mention long waiting times and high delivery costs as the main problems. Deferred payments (BNPL) and installment options are also becoming a key element of the offer for many stores, as they increase customers' financial flexibility, effectively lowering the purchase barrier – it was reported.

A study on the financial culture of entrepreneurs carried out for BIG InfoMonitor by Quality Watch using the CAWI method on a sample of 552 companies in June this year. (PAP)

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