ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a brief overview of the development of retailing in Poland. It also provides an assessment of international investment in three different retail formats: hypermarkets, supermarkets and soft discounters and seeks to examine the extent of the internationalisation of each of these segments of the retail sector. Foreign investors clearly dominate the hypermarket sector owning nearly 90 per cent of stores and an even larger share of total retail space since foreign-owned hypermarkets tend to be much larger than domestically-owned stores. Several international retail companies acquired regional supermarket chains with the objective of establishing a base from which to gain market intelligence and understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of the existing Polish distribution system. Paradoxically, although Poland has one of the highest densities of stores and kiosks in Europe — 927,000 in 1996 — the overall environment in which retailers operate is that of an economy of scarcity.
