Small Shop in Poland: How to Test Demand and Calculate Your Budget

Before opening a small shop in Poland, check demand for specific products, the full cost of the premises, and how much each purchase will contribute to monthly expenses. Move ahead with opening preparations when a cautious sales forecast covers these costs, your needs, and required payments, while leaving a cash reserve after you pay for stock and fit out the shop.

First, gather your own observations and written offers from landlords and suppliers, then prepare a budget in PLN, Polish zlotys. Before signing contracts or starting sales, separately check which business activities your residence status allows and which requirements apply to your product range, premises, and employees. Your answers will determine the final budget.

Define what your shop will offer

Write down who will shop with you, what they will buy, and why. For example: “A home textiles shop near a residential area, selling towels, bedding, and kitchen sets, where customers can inspect the fabric before buying.” You can test this idea by looking at the product range, prices, and customer behavior.

Choose a limited list of products for your first calculations. For each item, note the purchase price, delivery cost, planned selling price, minimum order, delivery lead time, and opening quantity. List color and size options separately, as they increase the purchase amount.

Prepare specific questions before speaking with potential customers:

• Where and when did you last buy this kind of product?
• How much did you pay, and what influenced your choice?
• What size, material, or configuration were you unable to find?
• What might persuade you to buy from a new shop at the stated price?

Record answers without names or contact details unless you need them for the research. What people say about their last purchase can help you assess demand. An answer like “I would buy it” does not confirm a future sale.

Check the location and competitors through your own observations

You can set aside two weeks as a working plan for your first check. This is a suggested research period, which you can extend if you do not have enough data.

1. On the first two days, choose several premises and list shops that sell similar products nearby or deliver to the area.
2. During the following week, observe each location on different weekdays and weekends, in the morning, afternoon, and evening. Record how long you observe, the weather, the number of passersby, and how many people enter similar shops.
3. At the same time, compare identical products by brand, material, size, configuration, price, and delivery cost. Save links or photos of price tags where permitted.
4. By the end of the second week, obtain written rental and purchasing terms and prepare three sales scenarios.

The owner can make the observations or assign them to an assistant. Use the same recording form at every address. If you counted people outside one location for an hour on Saturday and another for ten minutes on Monday, repeat the observations at both locations on comparable days of the week and at comparable times, for the same length of time. To compare them, calculate the number of passersby per hour, while taking weather, holidays, and local events into account. Adjusting for observation time alone does not remove the difference between Saturday and Monday foot traffic.

Passersby, visits, and purchases are different measures. You usually cannot tell from the street whether someone bought anything. So at first, record the share of passersby who might buy from a new shop as an assumption. You can verify actual sales only in a format whose legal requirements you have already checked.

Also compare product ranges and service: which items are in stock, whether customers can inspect products, how quickly staff respond, and the opening hours. Record the specific need your shop will meet.

Find out the full cost of the premises

Ask the landlord for a written offer and a draft lease. Find out what the stated amount includes, which charges are extra, and whether amounts include VAT, Poland’s value added tax. For utility costs, ask for previous bills or an explanation of how they are calculated.

• Check the rent, service charges, electricity, heating, water, waste collection, and internet costs.
• Record the deposit, advance payments, and any agent’s fee.
• Get estimates for repairs, lighting, furniture, signage, and equipment.
• Find out when rent payments begin and how long it will take to prepare the premises.
• Ask a specialist to check permitted use of the premises, whether planned work is allowed, the rules for changes to the rent, and the terms for ending the lease.

A deposit ties up money at the start, even if the lease says it will be returned. Do not count it as cash available for stock purchases. If rent is due during the preparation month, include it in the opening budget.

Prepare opening and monthly budgets

Divide your funds among the fit-out, opening stock, and ongoing operations. You have to pay for purchased stock, but its full purchase cost is not an expense for a single month when calculating sales results. That calculation includes the cost of the goods actually sold.

Here is a fully hypothetical example. All figures are made up to explain the method and are not market prices in Poland.

For the monthly calculation in this example, the owner budgets the following amounts:

The amounts for employees and contributions are hypothetical too. For your shop, ask a Polish accountant to calculate the full cost of your planned hires and the owner’s payments. Income or revenue tax is not included in the example. Add the owner’s personal expenses separately as well.

Back up each amount with a document: a supplier’s offer, estimate, tariff, draft contract, or accountant’s calculation. Mark amounts that have not been confirmed so you can see which questions you still need answered before deciding.

Calculate what each purchase contributes

Sales contribution is what remains after the cost of the goods sold and the expenses associated with that purchase. The shop uses it to cover rent and other monthly expenses.

For this hypothetical example, assume an average purchase of 80 PLN, a cost of goods of 48 PLN, and a combined payment processing fee and packaging cost of 2 PLN. The contribution from one purchase is 80 − 48 − 2 = 30 PLN. This is the amount before monthly expenses and income or revenue tax.

This example does not model the impact of VAT. For your own calculations, an accountant should determine which amounts to use with or without VAT and which purchase taxes you can account for. Compare sales and expenses on a consistent basis.

If products have different contributions, account for the expected share of each product group in sales. For deliveries or sales through a marketplace, include the relevant fees, packaging, delivery paid by the shop, and expected losses from returns and damage. Account for discounts in the selling price.

Calculate break-even sales and the sales volume you need

The break-even point shows how many purchases are needed for their contribution to cover the model’s expenses. With monthly expenses of 12 000 PLN and a contribution of 30 PLN, you need 12 000 ÷ 30 = 400 purchases. At an average purchase of 80 PLN, revenue will be 32 000 PLN.

If the shop is open 26 days a month, that averages 400 ÷ 26 ≈ 15.4 purchases per day. You can aim for 16 purchases a day, but check the result over the month. This volume covers only the expenses in the example. It does not include money for the owner’s personal needs or income or revenue tax.

If the owner also wants to receive an additional 4 000 PLN a month before the relevant tax, the target increases: (12 000 + 4 000) ÷ 30 ≈ 533.3. You need at least 534 purchases, or 42 720 PLN in revenue if the average purchase stays the same.

Now compare the target with your demand assumptions. Suppose, hypothetically, 250 people pass the shop each day and 6% of them buy something. That is 250 × 6% = 15 purchases a day, or 390 over 26 days. At a contribution of 30 PLN, the result is 390 × 30 − 12 000 = −300 PLN, before the owner’s personal needs and tax. The 6% share in this example is an assumption that needs to be checked.

Check the effect of lower sales and discounts

Prepare cautious, base, and favorable scenarios. Change the number of purchases, average purchase amount, purchase cost, and expenses in line with specific assumptions.

Calculate the effect of a discount separately. If the average purchase falls by 10%, from 80 to 72 PLN, while the 48 PLN cost of goods and 2 PLN in variable expenses stay the same, the contribution will be 22 PLN. You will need at least 546 purchases to cover 12 000 PLN. At 400 purchases, the result will be 400 × 22 − 12 000 = −3 200 PLN. So assess a planned promotion alongside the increase in sales it needs to generate.

Calculate a cash reserve from your payment schedule

Prepare a cash flow plan for the first months: opening balance, money received, supplier payments, rent, employees, taxes, contributions, and closing balance. Account for when stock payments are due and when you receive money from customers. Your reserve should cover the largest projected cash shortfall plus an additional amount for unexpected costs.

For a preliminary estimate in our hypothetical example, the owner sets aside three months of regular expenses, 8 000 PLN to replenish stock before sales revenue is sufficient, and 4 000 PLN for unexpected payments. The reserve is 12 000 × 3 + 8 000 + 4 000 = 48 000 PLN. Along with the opening costs of 47 000 PLN, the total needed is 95 000 PLN.

Three months is the period chosen for this example, not a guarantee that the reserve will be sufficient. Set the final amount using your own payment schedule. Keep a personal living reserve separately. If you need a loan, add its payments to your forecast and run the calculation again.

Track stock, prices, and costs in Torgsoft

Once the shop is operating, you can view stock data in Torgsoft’s “Warehouse → Stock Status” mode. It shows whether a specific product is in stock, its quantity, size, selling price, and cost. These fields are described on the official Torgsoft inventory management page.

The owner or the person responsible for purchasing can compare stock levels with planned quantities and compare prices and costs with the original figures in the financial model. For example, before the next purchase, check which sizes are left and recalculate the product’s contribution if the supplier has changed the price.

To track stock this way, first receive products into the warehouse correctly and keep inventory records up to date. Account for fees, rent, taxes, and reserve needs in a separate financial calculation. Check Polish requirements for cash registers, invoices, and accounting separately.

Legal questions to resolve before spending on opening

Prepare a description of your shop for a Polish accountant and the relevant specialists: your residence documents, product list, countries of supply, sales and payment methods, premises address, and hiring plan. Based on this information, they can determine the applicable requirements, documents, deadlines, and costs.

• Check whether your residence status allows you to conduct the planned business, which business forms are available, and how to register. Start with the government portal Biznes.gov.pl and your voivodeship office.
• Find out about taxes, contributions, recording sales through a cash register, and invoicing rules. Official resources: Ministerstwo Finansów (Ministry of Finance), conditions for VAT exemption in 2026, KSeF (the National e-Invoicing System), and ZUS (the Social Insurance Institution).
• Before choosing premises, check requirements related to your product range: permits, sanitary conditions, labeling, storage, product safety, and imports. For sanitary matters, contact your local station through the Główny Inspektorat Sanitarny (Chief Sanitary Inspectorate); for local permits, contact the gmina, or municipal authority.
• If you plan to hire employees, check hiring procedures, the right to work, the full cost of hiring, and workplace requirements through the Państwowa Inspekcja Pracy (National Labour Inspectorate) and ZUS.
• For customer dealings, check rules on information, prices, complaints, and distance selling on the UOKiK (Office of Competition and Consumer Protection) portal. For customer data, mailing lists, and cameras, check requirements through UODO (the Personal Data Protection Office).
• When preparing to register, check requirements for official electronic correspondence through the e-Doręczenia (electronic delivery) service.

After getting these answers, add any missing equipment, documents, work, and recurring payments to the estimate. If a requirement for your product or premises has not yet been clarified, defer the expenses associated with it.

Make a decision based on your calculations

Before deciding, put your observation notes, competitor comparisons, supplier offers, draft lease, estimates, financial model, and answers on legal requirements in one folder. For each assumption, record what evidence supports it.

• Move ahead with opening preparations if your cautious forecast delivers the result you need, your reserve covers projected cash shortfalls, and the applicable requirements are clear and included in your budget.
• Continue your research if the conclusion depends on an unverified share of buyers, average purchase amount, or purchase price. Decide what data to collect next and how much you are prepared to spend to check it.
• Recalculate for a different address, smaller premises, or a narrower product range if the number of purchases you need is higher than your evidence-based forecast.
• Delay opening if the required reserve will not remain after opening payments or if unresolved requirements could substantially change your costs.

Record your acceptable loss, minimum cash balance, and date for reviewing the decision. This will help you adjust purchases, expenses, and the shop format in time.

Official resources for opening preparations

• Biznes.gov.pl — government portal for checking business operation and registration requirements.
• Ministerstwo Finansów: VAT exemption based on sales volume — conditions and exclusions; links to Article 113 of the Act on Tax on Goods and Services.
• Ministerstwo Finansów: recording sales using cash registers — requirements and exemption conditions.
• Ministerstwo Finansów: KSeF rules — how the system applies and transition rules.
• e-Doręczenia: official schedule — deadlines for the relevant groups of entities.
• Główny Inspektorat Sanitarny (Chief Sanitary Inspectorate) — sanitary matters and local station contacts.
• Państwowa Inspekcja Pracy (National Labour Inspectorate) and ZUS (the Social Insurance Institution) — employee, insurance, and contribution matters.
• UOKiK: consumer rights and UODO — consumer sales and personal data matters.