According to the estimates published by Renek Mendruń from Nielsen BookScan Polska, in 2020 individual customers bought about 100 million books. Thus, there are 2.6 copies for one Pole. Taking into account that the retail price of a book, including discounts, is on average around PLN 25, a statistical inhabitant of our country spends only around PLN 60 a year on it.

So what does it spend more on? Certainly for sweets. Nielsen's research, published in July 2018, shows that Polish consumers paid PLN 11.3 billion for them (not including chewing gums) during the year. This is how much it cost to purchase 4 billion packages of sweets. What is the conclusion? On an annual basis, the Pole spent almost PLN 300 on them on average.

In turn, the data presented two years ago by the Employers' Association of the Polish Spirits Industry shows that we have bought in 2018 as much as 510 million pieces of small-format vodkas. They accounted for 29 percent of the spirits market, the value of which reached PLN 11-14 billion. The value of the small format vodka market was at least 3.1 billion. Thus, a statistical Pole spent about PLN 90 a year on so-called "monkeys".

Poles spend even more money annually on beer. Taking into account that a statistical inhabitant of our country drinks about 100 liters of this drink annually (with alcohol strength by volume of at least 0.5%), and the average price of a half-liter bottle is PLN 2.76, he spends about PLN 550 on this pleasure.

"Despite inflation, the average retail price of one book, including discounts, does not grow and remains at PLN 25. In discussions about the level of readership in Poland, the argument that Poles read little because books are expensive and we simply do not buy them. A broader analysis shows that this is not the case. Poles prefer to simply spend their money on other purposes," Maria Deskur, head of Burda Books, which turns into SŁOWNE in April, said.

In her opinion, this fact can be realized by comparing it to other things for which we will pay about PLN 25. It can be two coffees with milk from a chain café, a set consisting of a burger, fries, and a drink from a chain restaurant, five liters of PB 95 gasoline, two packs of cigarettes, two films on the VOD platform.

(WBJ)