Espoo retailers report sales losses after parking cut

Retailers at two shopping centres in Espoo say sales have fallen by hundreds of thousands of euros after free parking was cut from two hours to one, Yle reports.

At the Iso Omena shopping centre, Citymarket retailer Toni Pokela says the number of customers arriving by car has been as much as 10 per cent lower in some weeks. Sales have fallen by more than 500,000 euros over the past three months, he says.

Pokela says customers who drive to the hypermarket to do a week’s shopping in one visit are particularly important to the business. Tuomas Mulo, a regional director for HOK-Elanto’s Prisma stores, also reports a clear decline in customers at the Iso Omena store, estimating it at a few per cent. Some customers appear to have switched to other Prisma stores in Espoo, including the one in Olari.

At the Lippulaiva shopping centre, K-Supermarket retailer Juuso Österman says the store has been serving 6,000 to 10,000 fewer customers per month than last spring. He estimates that sales over the past three months were about 400,000 euros lower than a year earlier. Sales growth fell by around 6 per cent when the free parking period was reduced to one hour, he says.

Österman’s store is starting to cover the second hour of parking for customers who spend more than 50 euros. The two-euro parking charge will be deducted from their bill at the checkout. The store has set aside about 10,000 euros for customers’ parking costs through the end of the year.

Österman says the store may continue paying for the second hour permanently if the move brings customers back. He hopes Citycon, the property investment company that owns the shopping centre, will restore a second free hour for all visitors.

Iso Omena’s Citymarket will not pay customers’ parking fees. Pokela says doing so would be costly and technically difficult, because discounts cannot be applied at the checkout to tobacco products or infant formula. Both the Citymarket and Prisma stores have passed customers’ feedback on the parking changes to Citycon.

Citycon reduced free parking from two hours to one last summer at its shopping centres in Espoo, including Iso Omena and Lippulaiva, and at Myyrmanni in Vantaa. In early September, the company extended free parking at Myyrmanni to 90 minutes, while the free period at the two Espoo centres remained one hour. Citycon did not respond to Yle’s request for an interview.