THE IMPLICATIONS OF THE ECONOMIC CRISIS FOR POLISH CONSUMER BEHAVIOURS

• Main Author: Bogdan Mróz
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Publishing House of Rzeszow University of Technology 2016-05-01
• Series: Modern Management Review
• Subjects: economic crisis, consumer behaviour, poland
• Online Access: http://doi.prz.edu.pl/pl/pdf/zim/210
• ISSN: 2300-6366; 2353-0758

The economic crisis, affecting with varying intensity a host of countries across the world, has not gone unnoticed among Polish consumers and households. The economic slowdown has triggered among consumers and households an array of remedies and adaptations to the changed crisis-time economic realities. Many of the Polish consumers and households, and especially those with lower income, found it imperative to cut down on consumer spending, scale down certain needs and revise their pre-crisis consumption patterns. In Poland the consequences of the recent economic crisis were not so dramatic as in other countries, however the country’s economic slowdown had its impact on the standards of living and behaviours of Polish consumers and households, resulting, inter alia, in rationalisation of consumer behaviours and spending. It may be assumed that the latest economic crisis has prodded Polish consumers to reflect on the sense of the pre-crisis fever of creditbased consumption and materialistic approach to life. The basic objective of the paper is to provide an empirical insight and highlight major issues related to the impact of the crisis on Poles’ consumer behaviours on the basis of the available research findings, and author’s own questionnaire research conducted in 2009 and 2015. An in-depth analysis of the new tendencies in consumer behaviours and consumption patterns of contemporary Poles drawing upon statistical data and latest available research findings may provide useful tips and recommendations for economic policy makers and corporate strategists.