The path to building strong position on the Polish market
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When budget tires ruled the market
In the early 2000s, the Polish passenger tire market looked completely different than it does today. Tire distribution and sales operated within a highly structured system: manufacturer – distributor – service workshop – end user.
Service workshops, most often family-run and locally operating businesses, were the primary place where drivers sought information about tires and made purchases. At the same time, there was a significant variation in competence levels and technical facilities among individual workshops.
The dominant segment at the time was budget tires, accounting for as much as 70–80% of the entire market. These were the most frequently chosen products, reflecting both the overall wealth level of society at the time and the structure of the national car fleet.
Your guide along the route: Andrzej Mazur, Sales Director at Continental Tires Poland
He has been associated with the passenger tire market since 2001 and has worked at Continental since 2004. He has completed the full professional path – from field sales, through online channel development, to nationwide sales management.
In February, we celebrate Salesperson Day, so today we will tell you about our PLT (Passenger and Light Truck Tires) department from the perspective of the market, our partners, and the team responsible for serving all sales channels.
The road to the premium segment
For Continental, this was a period of intensive market position building among both business partners and individual customers, based on a broad brand portfolio: budget, mid-range, and premium.
Working with a premium brand in those years required reaching a specific group of business partners – distributors willing to introduce such products into their portfolios and workshops capable of properly selling them and having customers for them.
Technology, innovation, tire performance confirmed by independent tests, and a high level of safety were the key arguments that consistently built the position of the Continental brand in the premium segment. However, such a process is long-term and requires consistency and coordinated actions carried out simultaneously across many areas.
When the market was almost entirely dominated by budget brands, building a premium brand required exceptional consistency. It was technology and proven quality that allowed us to gain the trust of partners and drivers.
The first major partnerships
Continental has always treated cooperation as a partnership – and this was also true back then. The market looked entirely different than it does today: it was highly fragmented, with around 14–16 distributors operating in the industry, most of them locally. Only a few operated nationwide.
The company consistently built cooperation based on understanding its partners’ business models and adapted to the needs of individual distribution channels: from traditional distributors, through independent and affiliated workshops, to car dealers, and soon also the emerging online channel.
The dawn of the digital revolution
As the market developed, new ways of reaching customers emerged, including the fleet channel and – ultimately groundbreaking – the online channel. Starting cooperation with online customers was a bold decision, as tires were then perceived as a logistically challenging product requiring installation and professional advice. Over time, however, it turned out that Polish consumers adapted to this purchasing model very quickly.
Today, drivers in Poland willingly buy tires online, and the share of such purchases is among the highest in Europe.
At a time when the market was highly fragmented, we focused on genuine partnership and understanding our distributors’ businesses. It was this cooperation that enabled us to introduce new sales channels, from local workshops to what was then a pioneering online channel.
Networks that changed the rules of the game
A tire remains a tire, and to fulfill its function it still requires professional service – meaning a workshop that ensures proper installation and service. As the market developed over the years, customer expectations regarding service quality and standards steadily increased. The response to these needs came in the form of new business models addressed to tire workshops: from “fast service stations”, through independent service networks, to franchise models offered by leading tire manufacturers.
BestDrive
For 15 years, Continental has been developing its BestDrive franchise network. In 2011, we launched the BestDrive project with the aim of setting the highest service quality and customer care standards, both for passenger and truck tires, while building a lasting and partnership-based relationship with our workshops.
Today, BestDrive is a strong group of professional workshops that set standards in their local markets not only in the tire area but also in broadly understood automotive service.
Rising customer expectations clearly showed that the product alone was not enough – service quality and customer care standards became crucial. That’s why we created BestDrive, a network that sets the highest customer service standards.
Premium takes the lead
With the development of automotive technologies and growing access to information, the way purchasing decisions are made has changed. Educational activities by tire manufacturers – including Continental – as well as the activity of online stores and industry media, have led drivers to consciously analyze their tire choices instead of relying solely on workshop recommendations. Access to knowledge about products, innovative technologies, test results, and key tire properties has become easier and more transparent.
The direction of car fleet development and growing sales of premium segment vehicles directly translated into increased interest in tires from the same segment. An important factor was also the growing number of new sizes, often homologated for specific manufacturers or even specific car models.
A breakthrough moment was the emergence of all-season tires.
This was a response to the needs of modern drivers, for whom convenience, cost optimization, and flexibility in everyday use are increasingly important. The premium segment ceased to be a niche – it became a conscious choice of a broad group of users expecting maximum quality and comfort.
The internet has made customers extremely well-prepared today –they come to the workshop with their own analysis and clear expectations regarding the product.
We accelerate
Today’s tire market in Poland is a complex, multi-channel ecosystem. Presence across various sales channels has become crucial; product availability alone is no longer sufficient. Comprehensive business support for partners is increasingly important.
Continental’s role has significantly evolved:
from product supplier to advisor and strategic business partner. Cooperation today is based on data, trend analysis, development planning, open dialogue, and joint responses to changing market needs. All this requires a team-based approach, synergy between sales, marketing, business intelligence, and logistics competencies, as well as high operational flexibility.
We have moved from selling products to providing business advisory services. We will continue working to deliver truly unique value to our partners.
If this journey were to be described in one sentence…
From my perspective, it is still a road built on consistency, careful listening to our partners’ voices, and creating solutions that support our shared growth. Building team competencies, observing the industry, and the international experience gained over the years have enabled us to effectively adapt to a dynamically changing market.
Set off on the journey
This route is not accidental. Wolsztyn – Warsaw is the route the protagonist of this story travels every week on his way to the office. It is his most frequently traveled road – in tire-related matters and on Continental tires. The starting point is no coincidence: Wolsztyn is a town of lakes and a steam locomotive depot – a place known as the European capital of steam, where technology and experience have played a key role for years.
We encourage you to explore it!
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Finish
But the journey doesn’t end here — explore other roads
