In the Swedish equivalent of “Kauppalehti” (Business Daily), there’s an article about Tokmanni.
Headline freely translated via Google Translate:
“Tokmanni: An affordable player at a cheap price. Finnish discount retailer Tokmanni has faced greater financial problems than the company itself anticipated. In this regard, the market is expected to improve. The bigger question is whether the company will succeed in its ongoing expansion plans in the Swedish market”
Unfortunately, I couldn’t read the article due to my very rusty high school Swedish skills.. I quickly checked the paper’s forecasts for revenue and profit and noticed that Inderes has more optimistic forecasts.
Edit: Well, this article was still readable by everyone during the day Finnish time, but now it’s behind a paywall. Did the Swedes notice a surprisingly high number of clicks → put it behind a wall?
“Pricing was erratic, and there were constant exceptions that the cash registers couldn’t keep up with.”
I’ve encountered this quite often when shopping at Tokmanni, and it’s not an advantage for Tokmanni or the customer. Yet, for some reason, the issue isn’t fixed, even though it clearly costs Tokmanni a loss in €.
The checkout line stops, a clarification ‘rumba’ begins, the offer flyer is browsed, and calls are made to departments. What should be a couple of minutes of checkout work turns into over 10 minutes of fumbling, and customers start getting annoyed.
Pricing and updating offers is a process problem that can be fixed - instead, the inability of supervisors mentioned in the article, or even their participation in bullying, is quite alarming for the company’s image and culture. Especially if the EVP, HR director responsible for the matter avoids talking about it.
Mr. Tokmanni seems like a jovial negotiator, Mrs. seems incompetent if the activities described in the article have been allowed to continue for years.
Sounds like any low-wage job, especially in a female-dominated field. Unfortunately. Supervisors come from the ranks of the employees, and this surely reveals the hierarchy of the cliques that have formed and old resentments.
Quick reaction from the CEO. Let’s hope for the best, that they genuinely address the problems, so it will surely reflect in the results when the staff’s affairs are in order.
It still smells a bit like they’re softening the news for the stock market, so people here wouldn’t get nervous “for nothing”.
Pricing with paper label prices placed on shelves is not up-to-date.
Electronic price displays are suitable for this kind of fast-cycle discount retail; marketing can freely adjust campaign prices without massive organization for placing price tags.
Of course, the connection to the POS system must be seamless.
Yes, the same problem likely exists in all large chains whose stores are not entrepreneur-driven. Puuilo, Lidl, Rusta, etc. The matter is easily exaggerated when employees who have been dismissed for one reason or another come forward out of bitterness. It is also very store-specific. I myself have met quite okay salespeople at Tokmanni who even greet customers.
Tokmanni is still being talked about. For comparison, I wanted to highlight chains that don’t have an owner/manager on-site. I myself have received both good and bad service from Tokmanni, and more bad than good from Lidl as staff often change, but also good. It depends on the person at the checkout, etc. I once complained to a higher authority about Puuilo’s service, and they admitted they had failed in their recruitment. Chains, of course, can only praise their own in public. These things get out of hand so easily when someone brings them to public attention.
At the Tokmanni in my village, I’ve observed that there is usually only one cashier at the checkout, even if there’s a long queue. There are more staff members present, but most of them are stocking shelves or similar. The checkout also offers Veikkaus services, and these often take a lot of time. A long checkout queue doesn’t give a very good impression to customers.
Recently, many items in the store have been moved to different places; could this be related to the arrival of the Spar food department?
Well now, the old gentleman “Tokmanni” commented: “Has Tokmanni now moved to a hard-core market economy where the last squeeze happens at the expense of the staff? We had the idea that it should be nice to come to work every morning. There must be joy in work.”
Kyösti is the absolute last person to talk about respecting employees. When he was a significant influencer in the company, it was decided, among other things, quite unilaterally to delay salary payments by a couple of weeks:
Recently, Kyösti has also, among other things, suggested that employees should do one corvée day (taksvärkki-päivä), which would be paid to the state. At the same time, he has, of course, complained about his own taxation.
It is also clear, of course, that an former boss/owner complaining about the company’s current state is rather tactless behavior. But it’s typical for Kyösti to grumble.
P.S. Good move by Rautiainen to call into Radio Rock’s live broadcast.
Iltalehti started that writing about Tokmanni’s staff and then continued it themselves with the headline “Tokmanni scandal grows”…so they themselves initiated and inflated it…and then Kakkonen (I don’t know if the staff was happy then?) was dug up to comment…quite a systematic search for and inflation of a scandal in a matter that, at least based on my close circle’s experiences, is present in several retail outlets elsewhere than just Tokmanni…and through my own work, a broader observation that people are doing poorly in workplaces in many different sectors. The question arises: is someone systematically trying to blacken Tokmanni’s name through Iltalehti..should a SCANDAL be started about that matter? …
It’s simply a matter of human resources being driven to an absolute minimum and even below that. Just 2-3 years ago, every department (clothing, hardware) had a department manager present, who, of course, mainly stocked shelves, but from whom a customer could ask questions if needed.
Also, you could get someone at the service desk if you wanted to, for example, return a product; now returns are handled only through the cashier, and there’s no extra staff. Now, there are no other people in the entire store except the cashiers; the shelf stockers are students and don’t know anything about anything.
I can imagine the workload is considerable if the cashier (almost always only one) handles the till and sales, customer returns, spelling out phone numbers for loyalty cards, correcting price errors (which are frequent nowadays), and even customer support alongside managing the till.
Three Tokmanni stores within 5km of my residence.
Prices have also generally increased; previously, there was always something affordable to buy. Even now, I looked at red-labeled discount products in a basket; there was a Philips 3000-series shaver (i.e., almost the cheapest series) on sale for 69€. When I checked the general price level on my phone, Cittari and Prisma’s normal price for the same product was 59€. The affordable products are those, and only those, that are in the offer leaflet; everything else is more expensive than competitors. I sometimes go to get those as a targeted search, but otherwise, there’s no point in wandering around the store anymore.
In my opinion, male shoppers have largely disappeared (to Puuilo?), and women buy trinkets and small household items. The fishing and car sections, etc., never seem to have customers.
Store-specific. When I pick up online store packages from my local Tokmanni, the cashier quite often calls another employee to handle the matter.
Fortunately, more and more people are learning to use QR codes. Even the “kalevit” (old-fashioned people), because Lidl’s app has finally forced them to adopt modern operating methods.
At a quick glance, I found one similar model in all the stores you mentioned, and the price is practically the same in each:
This is already quite a smear campaign against the entire Tokmanni, absolutely incredible.
Indeed, one hears about these bullying cases and backstabbing gossip, for example, from a certain retail chain starting with P, but I won’t start slandering that chain as I don’t have personal experience. But this is what acquaintances (women) have told about that retail chain, because a woman, a wolf, you know… Everyone understands that this problem is not only at Tokmanni, but it’s very easily slandered by some party.
In my opinion, these are rather peculiar reactions to the “controversy”. While it’s understandable that Iltalehti’s reporting on Tokmanni might seem one-sided, it’s important to distinguish between media criticism and the problem itself. Iltalehti’s first publication was, as I understand it, based on official documents, which is a fairly reliable source. Its purpose was certainly not to smear the company, but to highlight structural problems that should be addressed. Of course, when the story got clicks, employees, the CEO, and Kyösti were heard. I think a fairly diverse range of views has been presented.
Furthermore, the argument that similar problems may occur in other retail chains does not negate the fact that in Tokmanni’s case, these problems deserve attention and possibly corrective measures. @Pieni_siivu rightly pointed out that similar feedback has not been heard from competitors, almost the opposite. That could, of course, just be a matter of time until we hear the same from elsewhere, but until then, such chatter is just unnecessary speculation.
Hopefully, Tokmanni’s culture can be changed. It’s for the benefit of the employees, but also for the investors. Motivated and well-managed employees are a competitive advantage.
