The Maze: Poland gives international retail a useful slap in the face. EY-Parthenon's 2025 preference ranking puts Allegro, Rossmann, and Empik on the overall podium, while Amazon is nowhere near it. Across seven category podiums, 14 of 21 places go to Polish-founded retailers. The caveat is important: this is consumer preference, not market share. The implication is sharper. In Poland, shopper trust does not automatically flow to the biggest global platform. It often sits with local champions and category specialists.
Allegro owns the front door that Amazon usually expects to own. The overall ranking puts Allegro first, Rossmann second, and Empik third. That is not a marketplace-only ranking. Adrian Gmelch's clarifier says `General` is the pooled preference score across all tested categories. So Allegro is not merely beating Amazon in a narrow ecommerce lane. It is the retailer Polish shoppers name first when the field is widened. That is a different kind of asset. Search, selection, and Prime-style logistics matter. But in Poland, the habit layer was already occupied.
Local density is the real story, not nationalism. Electronics is a fully Polish podium: Media Expert, RTV EURO AGD, and x-kom. Fashion is also fully Polish: 4F, Sinsay, and Reserved. The overall row is Polish too: Allegro, Rossmann, Empik. That gives the table its punch. But the foreign winners are not random global giants. They are trusted specialists: IKEA, Castorama, Leroy Merlin, Decathlon, Lidl, and Rossmann. Poland rewards brands that feel obvious for the mission. The pattern is less `buy Polish` than `trust the operator that owns the job`.
Preference is not the same as power, and that is why this matters. The source explicitly measures the share of category shoppers who say they are fans. It does not measure revenue, store count, gross merchandise value, or market share. That explains the grocery tension. Biedronka can be a huge Polish grocery force, while Lidl still wins Food preference in this ranking. It also explains why Rossmann can rank second overall: a specialist with intense category love can punch above its sales footprint when fan scores are pooled.
The playbook changes when local champions already have emotional distribution. Amazon entered Poland as a retail marketplace in 2021, but this ranking shows no Amazon podium in General or any visible sector row. That does not mean Amazon is commercially irrelevant. It means the default Western Europe assumption is dangerous. In some countries, Amazon is the first mental shelf. In Poland, Allegro has that shelf. For brands, the entry question is not `How do we get on Amazon?` It is `Which trusted local or specialist surface already owns the shopper's intent?`
Why it matters: Retail expansion often treats Europe as one operating surface with different languages. Poland says no. The market has global specialists, strong discounters, and a powerful local marketplace at the same time. That mix punishes lazy channel strategy. If a retailer or brand enters Poland with an Amazon-first reflex, it may optimize for the wrong door. The smarter move is to map preference before distribution. Love is not market share. But it is where market share can get expensive to steal.
