Tips for the Finnish supermarket
Here’s a few quick tips when shopping at a Finnish supermarket…
In today’s modern world, there’s no need to have coins in your pocket…except at the grocery store (and parking meters). At all Finnish supermarkets you need to have a coin to get a shopping cart, the coin is then given back to you when you return the cart. And not just any coin, often only 50 cent or 1 euro pieces. I never have coins in my pocket and forget about this fact each and every week as I enter the store.
I guess there was a serious problem in Finland some years back with people not returning their shopping carts, so the stores took appropriate measures. But I have found that American coins also work in these carts - quarters, nickels (shown in the blurry photo below), and pennies (sorry, no dimes). And I’ve found that you can even get the nickel back without returning the cart. The other trick is to take two abloy (typical house) keys and jam them in the coin slot, one on the left and other on the right.
Once you’re in the store and ready to check out, don’t get in the first cashier line you see. Finns have this strange ailment that whenever they see a line, they feel they must be in it. Every week at my local supermarket I think there’s huge lines at the checkout, then I’ll stroll twenty registers down and there’s a bunch of girls sitting there without any customers.
After you’re done placing your items on the conveyor belt, be sure to place that triangle stick behind your things - in the states, the person who begins placing their stuff on the belt does this first. And grocery bags cost money, like 20 cents a bag, but they’re much more durable than the free ones in the states.
And there’s no pissed off teenager there to pack your grocery bags for you, you need to do this yourself - and for a male, this can be a very intimidating experience, cause you got like 30 seconds to pack everything before all the lanes are full and you need to share yours with another customer. The checkout girl gives you that nasty look while she fires up that other conveyor belt so your food gets smashed into that wall and you stand there and witness all your delicate items being crushed into one another.
Personally, I use 1 EEK coins, but after reading your blog, I shall try pennies. Also I should point to you that you do have a choice in plastic bags. At Lidl, you can either choose the .14 cent os a 0.07 cent bag.
Comment by bill — Sat, Oct 28th, 2006 @ 8:23 pm
You may also choose a paper bag (more expensive than a plastic one).
Comment by Timo L. — Sat, Oct 28th, 2006 @ 10:28 pm
Personally, I’d love to see the coin-return cart system adopted in the US. One of my biggest pet peeves is the runaway shopping carts littering up parking lots. For some reason, most shoppers find that the cart return just two spaces away is way too far to walk and leave their cart to float around. Here in Texas where we get some nasty wind storms, those carts can be downright dangerous - to your person and car!
Comment by Peanut's Mom — Sat, Oct 28th, 2006 @ 10:43 pm
Maxi Leppävaara (it was demolished to make way to the second part of Sello) used to have a system where kids would get stamps when they returned the carts back to the door. After 20 carts, they would get a coupon worth about 3 euros, I remember.
As a kid, I went there few times to get pocket money. Apparently it didnt work though, because two or three years before Maxi stopped operating they stopped using that system.
BTW, it took me a moment to get what that photo of yours was about.
Also, those little plastic bags where you stuff veggies? Those are free. I use them when I go to store, but my stuff usually is something like three chocolate bars, milk, little meat and bread.
Comment by iJusten — Sat, Oct 28th, 2006 @ 11:40 pm
I remember when i was a little kid and all the bags were free…those were the days
Comment by Christian — Sun, Oct 29th, 2006 @ 12:49 am
In Canada coin-carts are also pretty common (at least in Safeway and Save-on-foods).
Also I think those little plastic bags for veggies are pretty much what you get in US/Canada at the cashier line. The kind that cuts straight through your hand when you’re trying to carry your milk cartons to the car.
Comment by Zark — Sun, Oct 29th, 2006 @ 12:52 am
The small monetary incentive to return the shopping cart seems quite reasonable to me. Soetimes I have found myself at a loss for coins, but in some of the larger stores they will give you a free token for the purpose at the information counter. Also, my family’s new car has a keychain with a detachable version of the company’s logo which doubles as a shopping cart deposit token - very convenient!
I also don’t mind paying for shopping bags, although usually I don’t have to because I bring my own cloth bags. The “free” bags you get in the United States aren’t really free, as their cost is part of the overhead and needs to be passed on to the consumer in the price of the food.
This seems to be culturally difficult for most American consumers to grasp, but some stores I have been to in the United States approach the equation from the opposite end: customers who give up their right to the “free” bag get a discount of a few cents on their purchase. In one bookstore they had a different version of this: while turning down a bag did not bring any immediate monetary benefit to the buyer, each time someone bought something and opted out of a bag, the cashier would put a token in a jar at the cash register representing a certain amount of money that would be donated to a good cause.
Comment by Kimmo W. — Sun, Oct 29th, 2006 @ 12:53 am
Sorrry but i’m drunk. uyer use of national soiurcs us vasicly as close as to our finns. whgats teh big deal. i get toilet paper anywayl
Comment by Kez0nat0r — Sun, Oct 29th, 2006 @ 2:45 am
I love having someone bag my groceries again without having to go through the stress of trying to bag and pay before the cashier moves on and I always choose the paper option, too…unless it’s raining out. It’s not like the paper bags are thinner over here.
I draw the line at the bagger pushing the cart out to the car and putting them in the trunk though as I think that’s a bit much, but they return the cart for you. 
Comment by hfb — Sun, Oct 29th, 2006 @ 3:12 am
Humm, so the welfare state has figured out how to not reward kids with a job by letting you do it yourself.
What is the problem here?
Laws to tough on the grocery store, can’t fire the little pimple head? Or is it the add on costs of 60% taxes that the little snotty kids will not work for redistribution of their money to folks who will not work?
Comment by winter — Sun, Oct 29th, 2006 @ 3:35 am
@9 If you live in the South, check out Publix, where apparently the bag boys/girls are supposed to push the cart out to your car, but not put them in the trunk
Comment by bill — Sun, Oct 29th, 2006 @ 9:28 am
“Humm, so the welfare state has figured out how to not reward kids with a job by letting you do it yourself.
What is the problem here? ”
It’s the greedy retailers. They don’t want any extra person there to whom they have to pay salary. Or even pay them flushing the company toilets.
They have already a vision of a store, where all the stuff has RFID tag and everything is charged automatically from your bank account while you walk out with your groceries. No cash register ladies, somebody would just unload his truck on the shelves in the morning and one security person would check that the system finds the RFID chip on your credit card for correct billing. Even that security guy could probably be replaced by some sort of gates.
Comment by Antti (the Pablo one) — Sun, Oct 29th, 2006 @ 11:01 am
…Besides most Finns are taught to be uneasy about too much service persons fussing around them. It’s un-socialdemocratic.
(The neck is red again)
Comment by Antti (the redneck one) — Sun, Oct 29th, 2006 @ 11:04 am
It looks like the USA will not be the promised land of the low-wage grocery bagger for very long: thanks to technology, and a thing called “self check-out”, it looks like they are on their way out - along with cashiers:
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2032341,00.asp
http://searchcrm.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid11_gci848460,00.html
Comment by Kimmo W. — Sun, Oct 29th, 2006 @ 1:22 pm
Stockmann sometimes has those grocery baggers (at Christmas and at Hullut päivät). Frankly, I wouldn’t say they are of much help. It’s just another hidden cost.
Comment by Erik — Sun, Oct 29th, 2006 @ 1:41 pm
It’s un-socialdemocratic.
I suspect it’s more about Finnish sense of individual independence. “I can do it myself!”
Comment by Erik — Sun, Oct 29th, 2006 @ 1:46 pm
Ooohhhh, I *HATE* self checkout!!!! I figure, “If they’re gonna save labor costs on the cashiers and baggers and make *ME* scan and bag my own groceries (the horror), I want the cost of the goods in the store lowered!!!” Pass those savings on to us — the little guys (and girls).
Comment by funkybrownchick — Sun, Oct 29th, 2006 @ 2:28 pm
“”Stockmann sometimes has those grocery baggers (at Christmas and at Hullut päivät). Frankly, I wouldn’t say they are of much help. It’s just another hidden cost.”"
I think they use them to get people out (and new ones in) faster.
Comment by superiorinferior — Sun, Oct 29th, 2006 @ 2:42 pm
If I remember correctly those baggers are usually members of some sports team(or some other youth organization) and are raising money for their team so the stores don’t pay them anything it’s the customers who pay them tips and such for their cause.
They are beggar baggers
Comment by Anonymous — Sun, Oct 29th, 2006 @ 3:10 pm
#
It looks like the USA will not be the promised land of the low-wage grocery bagger for very long: thanks to technology, and a thing called “self check-outâ€Â, it looks like they are on their way out - along with cashiers:
I saw those in action for the first time this past summer in Baltimore. Some checkout lines had these automatic things and others had the clerk. And there seemed to be one clerk who was floating around all the automatic lines helping out customers.
Comment by Phil — Sun, Oct 29th, 2006 @ 3:25 pm
These automatic self-checkout things were in use in some supermarkets in Finland in the 1990s but apparently they weren’t profitable and the whole system was abandoned around 2000 or so.
Comment by Mikko Ellilä — Sun, Oct 29th, 2006 @ 4:48 pm
I saw the auto checkout lines in S.E. Pennsylvania, but that was about 5- or 6-years-ago. Most people seemed to gravitate toward the human cashiers, but a minority chose the automated lines.
I liked the automated lines….but, then again, my grocery shopping is usually limited to a few things I can carry in one hand—beer, chips, frozen pizza, beer….
Another thing that’s missing here in Finland/Europe are price scanner devices mounted throughout stores. They would be very helpful, especially since Finnish stores don’t pay much attention to clearly marking their prices.
The devices make it possible to determine the prices of unmarked products without spending lots of time finding a store employee. I think they had those in the US since about 15-years-ago. In fact, I sort of remember competitions, whereby stores would offer free groceries to customers who find wrongly marked- or unmarked price tags.
And those competitions were aside from the normal ‘find it cheaper somewhere else and we’ll give it to you free’ variety.
We’ll catch up to America eventually
Comment by Kristian (in Espoo) — Sun, Oct 29th, 2006 @ 4:56 pm
We go to the No Frills stores in Toronto, Ontario and we pay a quarter to use the cart but get it back. Also I like bagging my own groceries.
We also use the self-serve checkouts too because it is so easy to use.
Shopping carts are very expensive to replace because I was involved in the grocery industry for about ten years. They always disappeared and would wind up in the most unusally places.
Comment by Howard Lumsden — Sun, Oct 29th, 2006 @ 7:40 pm
Shopping carts disappearing in Canada? Wasn’t that the main source of livelihood of the Bubbles character in Trailer Park Boys?
Comment by Kimmo W. — Sun, Oct 29th, 2006 @ 8:07 pm
Check out the cashier with the biggest line. She/He is usually the nicest customer service person there and therefore older people etc will go to that cashier line.
Younger people really should learn to even say hello. In my local shop I used to say hello to the youger cashiers everytime but when I didn’t get any response I stopped that! I guess it’s just nicer to throw my six pack and HK-sininen front of them and then the money and no words. That’s like scene from Kaurismäki movie =)
Comment by PePe — Sun, Oct 29th, 2006 @ 8:26 pm
“I love having someone bag my groceries again…”
hbf—You’re gone?! I’ll miss our secret rendezvous in Kaivopuisto. Just you, me…..and the orange ball
http://www.axis-of-aevil.org/about.html
Comment by Kristian (in Espoo) — Mon, Oct 30th, 2006 @ 12:00 am
Those self-checkouts in the States are the most annoying contraptions I’ve ever seen….er, used. They WOULD be faster if they didn’t have so many problems, forcing you to call a live human for help every two seconds.
P.S. EXCEPT at the grocery store, not “accept”. Sorry, my inner proofreader is coming out.
Comment by Evil Creature — Mon, Oct 30th, 2006 @ 12:56 am
My solution for avoiding the hurry bagging problem is to put all my groceries back into the cart after paying for them. It’s not hard to bag them properly from there.
Somehow I always get friendly cashier service in the bigger stores, Citymarket, Prisma etc. I guess they can choose their workers from a bigger pool than smaller stores.
Comment by Terppa — Mon, Oct 30th, 2006 @ 1:34 am
“Another thing that’s missing here in Finland/Europe are price scanner devices mounted throughout stores. They would be very helpful, especially since Finnish stores don’t pay much attention to clearly marking their prices.”
The Prisma that I frequent has one, but I’ve never seen anyone use it. It is badly positioned, though, basicly in a corner, so you’d have to walk 50 metres to check some products’ prices. Maybe if they had a bunch of them I’d check something sometimes, but I don’t really feel like I need to have them. Must be one of those things you only know you need after you’ve tried it.
Comment by Fägäri — Mon, Oct 30th, 2006 @ 4:01 am
#29
For me, it’s easier than going to the check-out line and realizing that a product costs much more than what I thought.
Sometimes I hate looking through all those little yellow price labels along the shelf-edges, until I find the right one.
It never fails: I want a small jar of ‘exotic’ salsa dip and figure it *can’t possibly* cost more than 2-euros…. Then I find-out at the cash register that it costs 4.50.
I guess I need to move up a few more income brackets before I can just toss things into my lil’ carry basket, without checking the price first :-/
Or maybe I don’t like to overpay for the principle of the matter. Yet, I see lots of people do it–in fact it’s common—so I guess that’s why the stores don’t need to have those scanners.
Comment by Kristian (in Espoo) — Mon, Oct 30th, 2006 @ 4:22 am
Kristian - Yawp
Just bought an immaculate used Volvo wagon today for ~8k euro, too. I’m not sure you could get the rusted out frame sans engine of an ‘84 much less an ‘02 wagon for that in Finland. On the other hand, I had forgotten just how sucktastic the US mobile phone system is. 
Comment by hfb — Mon, Oct 30th, 2006 @ 4:44 am
Shopping carts disappearing in Canada? Wasn’t that the main source of livelihood of the Bubbles character in Trailer Park Boys?
LOL! Yeah, they could have used the coin system, although I reckon he would have stole them anyways. That scene where he’s just dropping the carts down the side of that hill is hysterical. Sooooo can’t wait for Trailer Park Boys the Movie to come to Finland (although I’m betting I’ll be buying the DVD from Canada in a few months time in order to see it)
Comment by Phil — Mon, Oct 30th, 2006 @ 9:38 am
Younger people really should learn to even say hello.
Back in school for fun we could go buy nothing but a condom and a 40oz of malt liquor and grin and wink at the young cashier girl as we were checking out.
Comment by Phil — Mon, Oct 30th, 2006 @ 9:42 am
Please mind also that bags are called “pussi”, so cashier can ask you wether you want iso (big) pussi or not.
Comment by Alex — Mon, Oct 30th, 2006 @ 9:48 am
[i]Maxi Leppävaara used to have a system where kids would get stamps when they returned the carts back to the door. After 20 carts, they would get a coupon worth about 3 euros, I remember.[/i]
Ha! Age gilds memories. I was a security occifer back in the day, more in Kannelmäki Maxi, but the system worked the same. There was a few official “carriage/bottle boys” but they were generally emptying the bottle recycling area. The carts were handled, by kids yes, but usually by a “granny-mafia” of 5-6 spiteful old ladies who “belonged to the furniture”. The cart return turnstile machine was a POS and the biggest concern of the grannies was they didn’t get the coupon. And it wasn’t three euros, it was 5mk (95c) and you had to collect… 100 or so stickers for it. The grannies were all disappointed their hobby was taken from them when the coin-carts came.
Comment by Hank W. — Mon, Oct 30th, 2006 @ 9:58 am
hfb - did you pay with a checque?
Comment by Hank W. — Mon, Oct 30th, 2006 @ 10:02 am
“Please mind also that bags are called “pussi ”
Heh, my Russian colleague is very amused about the Finnish word for flute, ‘huilu’ and especially that a person, who plays the flute, may be called ‘huilisti’.
Comment by Antti (the redneck one) — Mon, Oct 30th, 2006 @ 10:58 am
Just bought an immaculate used Volvo wagon today for ~8k euro, too. I’m not sure you could get the rusted out frame sans engine of an ‘84 much less an ‘02 wagon for that in Finland.
Great! I envy the purchasing power you’ll enjoy in the USA. That was always my favorite part about living in the states
By the way, living in Finland, we tend to forget the deleterious impact our government’s tax rip-off has on our own perchasing power. I did a quick search and found that the cheaper 2002 Volvos cost about 13,000-euros here in Finland—overpriced by 5K! And they’re produced next door in Sweden! The more expensive 2002 models cost about 40K in Finland!
I find it amazing how we continue to justify this condition by saying things like: “Oh, it’s ok that we pay double for everything here in Finland, we have free schooling and medical care for everyone.”
As if other countries don’t also have these things. Only difference is that we pay double for everything we own. They don’t. Germany is a good example…..and, in Germany, 2002 Volvos start at just under 9K for the nicer ones.
http://www.nettiauto.com/
http://www.mobile.de
Comment by Kristian (in Espoo) — Mon, Oct 30th, 2006 @ 1:19 pm
#38
A Cuban-Finnish coincidence:
A couple of days ago there was a story in Helsingin Sanomat about possible political changes in Cuba due to Castro’s illness. The article quoted a US professor (can’t remember the name) who explained that Cubans associate revolution with free education and free healthcare, which make the revolution an overall acceptable thing.
It’s kind of funny that we Finns feel sorry for Cubans for their blight and proud for our welfare state: free education and free health care adorned with severely diminished purchasing power.
Comment by Mara — Mon, Oct 30th, 2006 @ 3:27 pm
@39,
of course any Finns feeling sorry for the Cubans could check out the Dominican Republic or Haiti. Something like that would be what they’d have if it wasn’t for the Revolution.
Comment by prince of dorkness — Mon, Oct 30th, 2006 @ 3:58 pm
I want a ‘02 Volvo Wagon for 8k too! =) …Oh yeah I can’t, I live in Finland.
I’m so jealous to other countries people that they can drive with the same amount of money with better cars than I do. I paid 8k year ago and it was ‘97 VW Passat.
Screw the taxes! In hot temper countries they wouldn’t take this BS…they would riot on the street but in Finland we just take everything the government gives us.
Comment by PePe — Mon, Oct 30th, 2006 @ 6:26 pm
#41
Yes in the hot tempered countries they have homeless kids sniffing glue.
But you seem to have your priorities set straight.
Comment by Anonymous — Mon, Oct 30th, 2006 @ 6:48 pm
Anon…yeah, in Finland they just drink themselves comatose in Finland. But, hey, how about that ‘free’ education and health care?
Hank - Actually, yes, I did use the stone age technology of the check/cheque
Comment by hfb — Mon, Oct 30th, 2006 @ 7:21 pm
atleast they aren’t homeless and atleast our society tries to do something concrete about it.
So hfb yet again your poor analogy fails.
But if Finland is such a horrible place for a gated-community american I suggest that you visit the slums of Brazil.
Anyways I’d rather that all members of society have an opportunity to free (paid by taxes) quality education and health care than a really cool expensive car that I really don’t need.
But I guess your priorities are different, damn those racist drunk finns who poop all over Punavuori surely it is hell here.
Comment by Anonymous — Mon, Oct 30th, 2006 @ 10:35 pm
hbf—
You shouldn’t feel ’stone age’ by paying with paper checks. Whereas we in Europe pride ourselves for pioneering widespread mplementation of paperless money transfers, let’s look at how we do it….
First, our European banking system uses the Internet, which is controlled by a series of domain servers. Those servers translate and route any request we Europeans initiate from our web browsers. Our banking system depends on these servers. Want to guess who owns them?
You’d be correct if you guessed: The United States. It owns the main Internet ‘root’ servers and the ability to route every single browser request we in Europe make. It can even turn-off our domain if it wants, thereby crippling our banking system. In essence, we use *America’s* Internet for everything from surfing FinlandForThought to making payments for our electricity bills.
Second, all our bank account information is stored in repositories called databases. In fact, we have so much information, that we’ve constructed database ‘farms’ or ‘grids’—many linked database servers which act in unison.
The database products, that our banks use, are either made by Oracle or Microsoft. As we know, both are American companies. Embarrassingly, we in Europe don’t even have a database product capable of storing our own bank system’s vast amount of information. We’re not even close. At best, we could stretch our European limits and host FinlandForThought’s archives.
So, in the case of our banking system, we might have implemented the aforementioned technologies better, but, without research efforts that were funded by American private industry, we in Europe would be the ’stone age’ ones.
Comment by Kristian (in Espoo) — Tue, Oct 31st, 2006 @ 1:03 am
Great writing
One remark though, better to forget coins at home than your apartment keys in a trolley. Besides, at most supermarkets, you get those things for free which you unlock the trolleys with and you can carry them in your keyring, so if you remember to take your keys in the morning, you most likely have that metallic thing with you as well when going to the supermarket.
Comment by GFx — Wed, Nov 1st, 2006 @ 2:37 am