Polish retail enters 2026 without illusions, but with a precisely outlined plan for survival in a difficult macroeconomic environment. Although the past twelve months have been marked by stabilisation, the mood among industry leaders remains cool. The latest ‘Retail Barometer’ prepared by Future Mind paints a picture of a sector that has stopped chasing innovation and has started to treat technology as a shield against rising operating costs.
The data is unambiguous: three out of four experts assess the current situation of the industry as poor or average at best. None of those surveyed chose to describe the condition of the market as ‘very good’. This reticence is due to tough cost pressures, which are cited as the main challenge by as many as 67% of managers, and increasingly restrictive regulations. In this landscape, priorities have shifted sharply. HR issues or sustainability demands, which not long ago dominated the agenda, are now of interest to only 5% of respondents.
Instead of burying their heads in the sand, however, retailers are preparing a technology offensive. Almost 40% of companies are planning to increase their investment in IT infrastructure, a significant jump from last year’s 24%. Interestingly, this capital will not be dispersed. The industry is betting on specific optimisation tools: artificial intelligence, data analytics and cloud technologies. As Tomasz Koperski, CEO of Future Mind, notes, technology has ceased to be a marketing gadget in commerce. It has become a foundation for transforming processes to deliver real savings and allow for a better understanding of the customer in an increasingly fragmented digital world.
For Polish players, the key to growth is to go beyond the saturated local market. Almost half of the decision-makers point to foreign expansion as the biggest growth opportunity. Supporting this process are to be advanced e-commerce platforms and AI-based personalisation, which allow for rapid business scaling without huge fixed costs abroad.
In 2026, the winners will not be the companies with the largest innovation budgets, but those that most effectively implement automation in logistics and daily customer communication. The retail industry in Poland is maturing – it is abandoning optimism in favour of pragmatism, knowing that in times of geopolitical uncertainty, the only constant is the need for continuous optimisation.
