Finland’s second Normal Café is opening in Helsinki, where very affordable coffee is sold in conjunction with the cosmetics store. According to the researcher, it is a throw-in product that tries to compete with the growing online store.
Helsinki A cafe is opening on Aleksanterinkatu at the beginning of next year, where all specialty coffees cost less than two euros.
From its cheap prices known the Danish cosmetics chain Normal is making a new territorial conquest and is opening Finland’s second Normal Café in Helsinki. A similar cafe can be found in Tampere.
Normal’s country manager Johanna Valli tells HS that the opening ceremony was supposed to be held already in January, but with these prospects the opening will be delayed until March. According to him, in addition to the cafe, a new cosmetics store will open on Aleksanterinkatu.
The specialty of the cafe, known from Tampere, is that all drinks, from cappuccino to iced coffee, cost the same: 1.80 euros.
By the standards of the center of Helsinki, the price is very affordable. HS told in Januarythat you couldn’t even get a regular cup of coffee for three euros in any cafe in the city center.
Valli believes that it is precisely the cheap price that attracts a large flow of customers.
“Certainly the pricing arouses interest, but also the good location and the take away concept will probably bring commuters, young people and tourists to the place,” he says.
Although inflation has already shown signs of slowing down, it has increased the prices of many foodstuffs dramatically in recent years.
The price of coffee has risen by almost 40 percent from 2020 to 2023, according to Statistics Finland from the consumer price index. In the same period, the prices of cafes have risen by about 15 percent.
So how can it make economic sense to sell coffee this cheap?
According to Valli, the combination of a store and a cafe has been made profitable in Tampere. According to him, the coffee suppliers have been tendered carefully and the coffee acts as a kind of throw-in product for the store. Alone, however, a cheap cafe would hardly be financially profitable.
In addition, labor costs can be shared between the store and the cafe.
“If there is no need for an employee in the cafe, this can be transferred to the store, where there is always something to do,” Valli explains.
University researcher Essi Pöyry The Consumer Research Center of the University of Helsinki welcomes the fact that there will be more competition in Helsinki’s coffee scene.
According to him, coffee is often sold at a very high margin and is a profitable product for many restaurants, especially fast food restaurants. Coffee is consumed a lot and even several times a day.
Pöyry also thinks that in the case of Normal, it is at least partly a throw-in product, which can be used to attract customers to the store side for shopping as well. According to him, the price of coffee can be partially reduced by the fact that there are no customer seats in the cafe.
“Also, the quality of the coffee is not necessarily as high as in nicer cafes,” Pöyry reflects.
Turmoil finds it interesting that recently many companies have set up cafes or restaurants in connection with their stores, even if the Main Industry is something completely different.
In addition to Normal, he highlights the cosmetics chain hardware store Biltemanfurniture giant Ikea, second hand store Reloven and clothing store Arket.
Pöyry considers the wider change in the retail industry, where an increasingly large proportion of purchases are made online, to be an explanatory factor for the phenomenon.
“The brick-and-mortar stores have to come up with something else besides just the products, such as experientiality, sociality or very cheap prices to attract people to the place,” he says.
“In that case, perhaps more items are added to the shopping cart than from the online store. For example, at Normal, a customer might come to pick up coffee and detergent, but leave with a surprise purchase of Pokémon cards, toys and party supplies.”
Pöyryn says it’s a good thing that brick-and-mortar stores are trying new strategies in the face of change and, for example, are starting to compete with pricing in order to survive. In times of accelerated inflation, cheap prices are also an advantage for customers.
According to Pöyry, the new shops and cafes are also good for Aleksanterinkatu, which has become quieter in recent years.
Still, he wonders if Normal will raise prices at some point, once a strong foothold and store network have been achieved. The chain, which came to Finland in 2021, already has around 70 stores in Finland.
“It has been interesting to see how aggressively Normal is spreading and seeking a foothold in Finland,” says Pöyry.
The first to tell about the opening of Normal Café in Helsinki Helsinki News.
#Cafes #competing #coffee #shop #ridiculously #cheap #prices #Helsinki
