Bike boom in Poland
Source:Wprost
From:Taiwan Trade Center Warsaw
Update Time:2020/07/14
As a result of the spreading SARS-CoV-2 virus, Poles abandoned public transport and switched to their cars and bicycles. As many as a quarter of Poles in the coming months intend to use a muscle-driven two-wheeler for daily travels, results from the study "Poles on two wheels" commissioned by Nationale-Nederlanden.
Covid19 pandemic affected many aspects of Poles' lives - one of them is, among others, the way of daily travels. According to the aforementioned study, as much as 85% of Poles declares travelling by their own car, 25% of study participants indicated a scooter or bicycle as a mode of transportation. In the near future only every tenth respondent intends to use public transport. “Actually, this change should not be supriosing. Bicycles as means of transport or recreational devices have been growing in popularity in Poland for many years. It can be said that the coronavirus pandemic has somewhat accelerated this growth. Poles want to keep a safe social distance and prefer to move individually. It is worth emphasizing that among our respondents, nearly a quarter travel by two-wheeler at least once a week” – says Ewa Dąbrowska, expert at Nationale-Nederlanden.
From the beginning of March to the middle of June, Poles bought more bikes online than in the same period in previous years. However, the pandemic closure of large area stores ruined the season for sellers. Comparing to the same period last year, from March to mid-June there was nearly 50 percent increase in sales recorded by Polish biggest e-commerce platform, Allegro. Most popular are city bikes. Bicycles for children and teenagers come second. Mountain and hiking bikes are slightly less popular.
Some stores have nothing to sell, because this year's collections have already been sold out, and collections for 2021 are just beginning to appear in stores and will probably reach full availability in July at the earliest. “Bicycles are sold out. Distributors talk about new deliveries in mid-July. Now we take what is available - says Maciej Dębski, JR Concept (bicycle shop).
The bicycle industry is dependent on deliveries from Asia and at the very beginning of the year, before any restrictions were introduced in Poland, we had difficulties because the supply chains were broken. From late February, components began to be a scarce goods. Small plants in Europe could not meet the demand - says Mateusz Pytko, director of the Polish Bicycle Association. - Then the stores were closed, and many of those that could work had zero sales. In March and April, sales declined year-on-year to 60 percent. At the end of April, the movement revived, and May was record-breaking and sales increased year-on-year by about 20 percent.
Source:https://auto.wprost.pl/aktualnosci/10335066/koronawirus-sprawil-ze-co-czwarty-polak-przesiadl-sie-na-rower.html