Industries

Retail Trade

Retail trade sells products directly to customers through grocery stores, specialty stores and department stores. Retail outlets may be physical stores, online stores, or a combination of both. The core functions of retail trade include assembling product assortments, ensuring product availability, pricing, customer service, and creating a positive shopping experience.

Wholesale Trade

Wholesale trade develops or purchases products or services and sells them onward, for example to retailers or businesses. Wholesale trade thus serves retail trade as well as other companies and the public sector. Import activities are also an essential part of wholesale trade. In addition to the distribution of goods, wholesale trade today increasingly involves service activities. Wholesale operations within the automotive sector are not classified as wholesale trade in the standard industrial classification.

Measured by turnover, the wholesale sector is significantly larger than retail trade, but the number of companies and employees is smaller than in retail trade.

Motor Vehicle Trade

Motor vehicle trade provides consumers and businesses with new and used vehicles as well as related services. Sales of new vehicles are often based on brand representation and manufacturers’ warranties, while the used car market places greater emphasis on reliability, service history and inspections.

Motor vehicle trade also includes a substantial aftermarket: maintenance and repair services, spare parts, accessories, and tyre services. In addition, motor vehicle retailers offer financing and insurance solutions as well as various leasing and service agreements, often in cooperation with partners.

The sector is strongly shaped by the growing adoption of electric and hybrid vehicles and by new services related to them, such as charging solutions and battery recycling. Motor vehicle trade serves both private customers and businesses, whose needs may range from individual vehicles to entire vehicle fleets.

Grocery Trade

Grocery products include food, beverages, technical chemical products, household paper products, tobacco products, newspapers and daily-use cosmetics. The value of grocery sales by Finnish grocery retail groups amounted to EUR 22,930 million in 2023 (incl. VAT).*

Grocery trade consists of market-format stores or online stores that sell a full range of grocery products and primarily operate on a self-service basis. In addition to market stores, grocery retail also includes the sale of grocery products by food specialty stores, service stations and discount stores. The grocery market also includes foodservice (HoReCa), such as daily food supply to public institutions and sales to other customers, including restaurants, cafés and staff restaurants in the private sector. Retail sales of alcoholic beverages are also included in the grocery market in EU statistics.

A characteristic feature of Finnish grocery trade is chain formation and the concentration of procurement and logistics. The situation is similar in other Nordic countries, as sufficient efficiency in a geographically large and sparsely populated country cannot be achieved without large aggregated volumes. Lower cost efficiency would result in higher prices, smaller assortments, and poorer service and accessibility. Although sales volumes are concentrated in large stores, small local shops play an important role in safeguarding nationwide settlement and food security. As the population ages, there will be an increasing need in the future for services that are located close to home and accessible even without a car.

*Source: Finnish Grocery Trade Association (PTY), Annual Report 2024

Specialty Trade

Specialty trade consists of retail businesses that offer specialty goods and related services. Specialty trade includes, among others, clothing and footwear stores, furniture and interior design stores, consumer electronics and photography stores, hardware and building materials stores, bookshops, jewellery and watch stores, health product stores, opticians, pharmacies, and other retail businesses specialised in the sale of specific consumer goods.

Specialty trade represents a variety of sectors that nevertheless share many common characteristics, both structurally and functionally. At the core of specialty trade are personal service, high expertise and a specialised product range. It is also typical for specialty stores to seek central locations in the urban structure and to locate close to one another, as dense service clusters form attractive shopping environments.

Of all retail businesses, the majority are specialty stores. The size of specialty trade companies ranges from small independent businesses to international chains. The internationalisation of retail trade in Finland began as early as the 1980s within specialty trade. Some specialty trade chains are wholly owned multi-store companies, some are franchise chains, and some are so-called voluntary chains formed by independent companies that primarily engage in cooperation in marketing and purchasing.

Department stores are retail businesses that sell both grocery products and specialty goods.

Technical Trade

Technical trade is primarily business-to-business trade: the import and sale of products required by industry and construction, such as raw materials, parts, components, supplies, machinery and systems, as well as the provision of related solutions and services.

The importance of technical trade for the development of the competitiveness of industry and construction is central. Technical trade ensures the availability of products essential to industry and guarantees their quality.

In addition to products, companies also bring international expertise into the country, supported by their principals. Through their expertise, companies are able to improve their customers’ efficiency and products, thereby contributing to the development of industrial competitiveness.

The importance of solutions and services in the operations of technical trade companies is continuously increasing. Technical trade also exports Finnish industrial products abroad.

Customers include all industrial sectors, construction and the public sector, as well as retail trade, both in Finland and in neighbouring regions. Key industrial customers include the technology industry, particularly engineering workshops and shipyards, the forest industry such as the paper and pulp industry, as well as the construction, chemical and mining industries.

Consumer products within the scope of technical trade include motorcycles, all-terrain vehicles, small machines for gardening and forestry, as well as batteries and dry-cell batteries.