Back in business, Best Buys in Oulu

Annikki and I are now back in Finland and you will find your best buy tips on this page regularly.

This Saturday's local newspaper, Kaleva had, what they thought was a new discovery. They reported that in many Finnish shops, prices of smaller packs are cheaper than the larger packs.

Those of you who are familiar with our book "Handbook for Survival" published in 1994, may remember what we wrote on page 152:

Some Quirks

During our years in Finland we have had some very interesting experiences which we feel you should always bear in mind.

The first is one practice that leads us to believe that Finns must be really poor in Mathematics. It is not unusual to witness this particular phenomena in most department stores. Anywhere else in the world, a large economy pack is always substantially cheaper than the smaller unit packs. Reasons as lower quantum of packaging costs, lower transportation costs per unit, etc. usually dictates this marketing philosophy. Not so in Finland. It is very often we see the large economy packs being offered at substantially higher prices than the smaller unit packs. Do not, therefore, just pick up the larger pack thinking it should be cheaper. Look carefully at the kg price or litre price for the pack and pick up the cheaper one. Several years ago we used to watch in amazement as Finns in large department stores picked up these larger packs at 40% higher prices than the smaller ones. Products where this was common was cooking oil, drinking chocolate and washing powder.

If you listen to advertisements on TV you will be led to believe that you would be saving money if you by refill packs of items such as washing powder - and this is as it is in the rest of the civilised world. Not so in Finland. If you wander around the supermarkets and compare the prices of the refill packs as against the prices of the same products in expensive plastic containers, you will find that the refill packs are MORE EXPENSIVE. Those doing marketing are utilising your natural instincts to pick up the refill pack as they have told you on TV that you would save money, and they expect you should not to query their dictum.

If you are conscious of the environment and tend to concentrate on purchasing products that are environmentally friendly, in Finland, you will be the target of racketeers who will charge you the hilt for you to follow your beliefs. Recycled paper or environmentally friendly washing powder cost much more than virgin paper or washing powders that pollute. There is no reason why they should, but the companies either do not want you to change your habits or they feel that you should be punished for holding these radical views on environment friendliness.

For your information, the past blog entries contain several pieces of useful information as where to find the Oulu Flea Markets, where to get your spectacles cheaper than you can find them in India, where not to buy certain items, the biggest fraudsters as lawyers, housing agents, and some shops which have good offers round the year.

We will try to keep this page up-to-date as we have several newcomers to Oulu. We find that they are wasting their money going to expensive shops as Stockmann, when they can get the same stuff at much lower prices.

This Sunday, if you are a fan of many sorts of nuts, as walnuts, etc, Antilla, in the centre of Oulu has a huge stock of Christmas nuts that arrived too late for the festive season. They are offering two packets of nuts for just € 1. This is a great offer if you have the paitence to crack open the nuts.

This Sunday you can get oranges at € 0.59 per kg (I believe some shiop may be offering them at € 0.49 per kg). Mangoes, no not any of the Indian varieties, are just € 0.99 per kg. These two offers are at the K-Supermarkets in different parts of the city, and possibly also in the Citymarkets.

The end of Christmas sale is continuing in many shops. Antilla has loads of stuff at 30 to 70% off, so it is worthwhile making a visit. They are open, like many shops, this Sunday from 12 till 18:00 hours. Annikki got some really expensive winter shoes at 30 - 50% their regular price.

The shops still selling lots of Christmas stuff are Kärkkainen and Halpa-Halli, but you will also find stuff on sale in Prisma and Citymarket.

Lidl still has the lowest prices for many items. So do not forget to take a look there before going to the other shops for your foodstuffs shopping.

Glad to be back with you, and we will try to keep you updated on the Best and Worst Buys in Oulu.