Almost 40% of Ukrainian respondents noted that they buy Polish goods, especially women (44%) and persons aged 35-44 (53%), according to the results of the sociological survey “Poles and Ukrainians in Daily Contacts” conducted by the Polish company MASMI and the Ukrainian company InfoSapiens.
According to the survey, Polish goods were more popular among respondents in the western region (46%) and Kyiv (50%) and less popular in the northern (29%), central (36%), and southern (35%) regions. Ukrainian respondents said they buy Polish cleaning products, food, clothing, shoes, sweets, drinks (tea and coffee), dairy products, meat, cosmetics, personal care products, and electronics.
At the same time, despite the fact that Ukrainian goods are now more available on the Polish market, both on the Internet and in Polish stores, they have limited popularity among Polish consumers. According to the survey, only 17% of Polish respondents answered that they buy Ukrainian goods, while 83% have no such experience. Among such goods, the Poles named Ukrainian sweets (mainly Roshen), halva, honey, alcohol (vodka, wine, and beer), kvass, cigarettes, cosmetics, clothing, and grocery products.
In early 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic began, cross-border trade between Poland and Ukraine flourished. In 2019, the Polish Central Statistics Office (GUS) reported that among all of Poland’s neighbors, Ukrainians spent more per trip to Poland, second only to Germans in total shopping. The pandemic has slowed down but has not stopped this trend.
The organizers of the sociological study were the representative office of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation in Ukraine and Poland, the Jan Nowak-Jeziorański College of Eastern Europe in Wroclaw, Foreign Policy Council “Ukrainian Prism.”
The study was conducted by the Polish company MASMI and Ukraine’s InfoSapiens in parallel in both countries in December 2020 using the online interview method (CAWI) with representative samples from Poland (1,051 respondents) and Ukraine (2,243 respondents).
