The chain bookstores are replacing independent ones in Poland — recent study

24.04.2025

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Between 2010 and 2020, nearly a third of bookstores in Poland closed due to rising costs, unequal access to books, and lack of government support, according to the report “Jeszcze książka nie zginęła?”, compiled by the Polish Economy Network with backing from the Polish Book Institute and funded by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage.

“675 out of 1668 bookstores in Poland now belong to large chains. The rest are independent and thus vulnerable to economic pressure,” is noted in the report.

Currently, there are approximately 1,668 bookstores operating in the Polish market, with nearly half of them owned by major chains like Empik, Świat Książki, or Książnica Polska. They have weak negotiating positions and lack access to flexible cooperation terms with publishers and distributors, and are compelled to purchase books at significantly higher prices than larger chains.

“Chain bookstores have discounts ranging from 50% to 70%. Independent bookstores often receive no more than 20-50%. This results in a systemically unequal situation,” authors of the report said.

Unlike chain bookstores, independent ones do not have a distribution or online sales infrastructure. Additionally, they have to work through intermediaries, pay for logistics, and cannot compete with big players in price or coverage.

The situation is especially bad not only in densely populated regions, but as well in small towns and villages. It is stated in the report that this situation particularly affects older people who do not use online shops, and children and young people who grow up without access to books outside of the school curriculum. “Even if there is a library in a community, its collection is often not enough to support reading outside of school. The loss of bookstores deprives residents of book diversity,” the report emphasizes.

The most common problems bookstores in Poland have are:

Growing costs of rent and maintenance of premises;
inability to compete with chain bookstores’ prices due to lower discounts;
lack of vertical integration, own logistics or sales systems;
changes in customer behavior, who are more and more often choose to shop online;
lack of systemic support from the government.

There are independent bookstores, which are exploring different formats. Here’s what they do:

Merge with coffee shops or sell stationery;
launch their own online stores.

As of 2023, over 11,000 publishing houses were registered in the Polish market. In reality, only 51 of them generated 82% of the profit. The rest either earn minimal profits or have no sales at all. The Polish market is mostly controlled by four distributors who manage around 80% of wholesale supply. This gives them the power to set terms for others, including demanding discounts of up to 70% off the cover price of books. Under pressure from these large distributors, small publishers often inflate prices, indicated on the covers, to compensate for the anticipated discounts.

These are the main solutions suggested by the authors of the report:

Grant independent small bookstores the status of cultural institutions, as it is the case in Gdańsk, where they have a rent discount (up to 70%);
to include certified bookstores in the public procurement system, in particular within the framework of the National Reading Development Program;
create a cooperative organization for independent bookstores that would unite their purchases, logistics, and promotion;
set a fixed price for books for the first year of sale (with a maximum discount of 15%) to eliminate aggressive price wars.

Read the full text of the report through the link.

Authors of the report are:

Jan Oleszczuk-Zygmuntowski (Co-chair of the Polish Economy Network, Leon Koźmiński Academy);
Maciej Sroczyński (Polish Economy Network);
Joanna Rachubik (University of Warsaw).