Tokmanni’s store network grows again – 201[st] Tokmanni store opens in Kouvola’s popular retail park

Tokmanni     Press release     1 December 2023 at 2:05 p.m.

The Tokmanni variety discount retailer chain is opening a new store in the Katajaharju retail park in Kouvola at 8 am on Tuesday 5 December 2023. With its diverse range of products, the pleasant and modern Tokmanni will perfectly fill the gap in the store network left by the Tokmanni store that was approximately half the size of the new store and closed in the area at the end of last year. As usual, the opening of the 201st store will have plenty of wonderful special offers and free surprise buckets filled with product gifts.

The new Tokmanni store will offer a very diverse product range focusing in particular on home improvement, interior decoration, clothing, detergents and cleaning products, seasonal products and beauty, health and wellbeing.

Kouvola’s newest Tokmanni store also has shop-in-shop departments with products of the Miny lifestyle brand launched by the Tokmanni Group last year and products of the Click Shoes store chain that was acquired this year. Miny, which will be seen in the Kymenlaakso region for the first time, offers a diverse assortment of beauty, wellbeing and interior decoration products and other surprising and interesting things to buy. The Click Shoes shop-in-shop department, on the other hand, sells dozens of different types of footwear.

The store, designed in line with discount retailer’s newest store concept emphasising convenient and pleasant shopping, will have around 4,050 square metres of retail selling space when the garden department to be built next year is included in the figure. The store will be located in a commercial property at Tommolankatu 7, 45130 Kouvola that was purchased by Tokmanni last summer.

“It’s great to be able to open a new Tokmanni store in the most centrally located shopping area in Kouvola before the busiest time of the Christmas season. We have renovated the commercial property that we purchased last summer to ensure that the premises can accommodate not only a comprehensive product offering, but also long-term store operations,” says Timo Heimo, Vice President, Sales and Supply Chain.

“We warmly welcome all our customers to come and do their smart shopping with us,” he adds.

The Tokmanni store in Katajaharju in Kouvola will have a shop-in-shop department dedicated to the variety discount retailer’s popular Miny lifestyle brand.

Familiar retail park

The store that is opening in Katajaharju will be the variety discount retailer’s 201st Tokmanni store in Finland and the fourth in Kouvola, which has a population of around 80,000. The three other Tokmanni stores in the town serve customers in Tornionmäki, Inkeroinen and Kuusankoski. In addition, the Tokmanni store in the neighbouring municipality of Iitti is located around twenty kilometres from the new store.

Tokmanni is already familiar with Kouvola’s popular retail park as a store site, as the variety discount retailer had a store about half the size of its new store in the Veturi shopping centre in the area until the end of last year.

“Our new Tokmanni store, will allow us to better meet the expectations of our customers in the Kouvola region. For instance, our product range will be significantly wider in practically all of our key product categories than in our previous shopping centre store,” Heimo says.

Customer service at the Tokmanni store in Katajaharju in Kouvola will be provided by about 20 retail professionals under the leadership of Store Manager Sanna Ollikka. The store will serve customers with long opening hours: on weekdays from 9 am to 8 pm, on Saturdays from 8 am to 7 pm and on Sundays from 10 am to 6 pm.

The shop-in-shop departments of the Click Shoes store chain, which was bought by the Tokmanni Group last spring, offer plenty of different type of footwear. The photo above is from the Click Shoes shop-in-shop-department located in the Tokmanni store in Seppälänkangas in Jyväskylä. Similar shop-in-shop-departments can be found in, for example, Tornionmäki and Kuusankoski as well as Katajaharju in Kouvola.

Handy services and a focus on energy choices

In addition to offering comprehensive and affordable product selections and a pleasant shopping experience, Tokmanni focuses on services that make customers’ daily lives easier and on smart energy choices.

At Tokmanni stores, customers can make purchases through the Tokmanni Tukku B2B sales function and the Tokmanni Klubi customer loyalty program. Customers can also pick up orders made through the Tokmanni online store and conveniently withdraw cash when paying at the checkout.

Tokmanni purchases only zero-emission electricity for its Tokmanni stores. At all Tokmanni stores energy-efficient LED technology is used in the lighting. As is the case with numerous other Tokmanni stores, the store in Katajaharju in Kouvola will also have a recycling point for electrical and electronic equipment waste, where customers can bring their light bulbs, batteries and small broken electrical appliances, such as shavers, kettles and electric toothbrushes.

Tokmanni stores offer an extremely wide range of products, such as jeans and other clothing products.

Special offers and surprise buckets with product gifts in true Tokmanni style

Tokmanni will celebrate the opening of its new store with opening offers, most of which will be available from Tuesday 5 to Sunday 10 December 2023, not only in Katajaharju but also in the Tokmanni stores in Kuusankoski and Tornionmäki. In addition, Tokmanni will be handing out 1,000 of its famous surprise buckets filled with product gifts for free to the first customers at the Tokmanni store in Katajaharju at the opening on Tuesday 5 December. A Tokmanni gift voucher worth EUR 100 has been hidden in two of the buckets. Tokmanni will reveal its opening offers closer to the store opening ceremonies.

At the opening of the new store on the morning of Tuesday 5 December, in addition to the store personnel, Tokmanni will be represented by Mika Rautiainen, President and CEO, Timo Heimo, Vice President, Sales and Supply Chain, and Hanna Saarinen, Regional Manager.

The Tokmanni store in Katajaharju in Kouvola is about double the size of the Tokmanni store that was closed in the nearby Veturi shopping centre at the end of last year. For customers, this means above all more products to buy and more low prices.

The Tokmanni Group’s network of stores will continue to grow and renew

In addition to Katajaharju in Kouvola, Tokmanni has entered into agreements on opening new Tokmanni stores in Pälkäne, in Eurajoki, and in Söderkulla in Sipoo. The construction of the Tokmanni stores in Pälkäne and Sipoo is underway, and the store openings are planned for the spring of 2024. Construction of the Tokmanni store in Eurajoki is scheduled to start next year, and the opening is planned for the autumn of 2024.

The Tokmanni store chain celebrated its latest store openings in October when it opened a megastore measuring around 9,000 square metres in Tiiriö in Hämeenlinna. Earlier in the autumn, Tokmanni also opened of a new Tokmanni store in the Revontuli shopping centre in the centre of Rovaniemi to replace the previous store. In addition, a new Tokmanni store opened in May in Konala in Helsinki.

This year, Tokmanni has also expanded its stores in Pihtipudas, in Ruoholahti in Helsinki and in the centre of Kuopio, and has acquired the business operations of Jyskän Varastomyymälä Oy in Jyskä in Jyväskylä, and incorporated the store into the Tokmanni store chain. In addition, in September, the Tokmanni Group concluded an agreement with the retailer and entrepreneurial couple Terttu and Jaakko Pirtinaho’s Mutalan Kauppa Oy to acquire the business of the Villen Kauppa grocery store. Tokmanni and Villen Kauppa serve their customers in a commercial centre that was opened in 2017 in Elovainio in Ylöjärvi. Tokmanni will take control of the acquired business on 1 January 2024. Villen Kauppa will be incorporated into the Tokmanni that is located under the same roof in early 2024.

Last spring, the Tokmanni Group opened two dedicated stores of its Miny lifestyle brand, one in the Trio shopping centre in the centre of Lahti and the other next to the Tampere Central Square. It also acquired the entire share capital of the footwear store chains Click Shoes and Shoe House. The newest Click Shoes stores opened their doors in the Pasaati shopping centre in the centre of Kotka in May, in the Willa shopping centre in the centre of Hyvinkää in September and in the Trio shopping centre in the centre of Lahti in October.

In July, the Tokmanni Group announced that it was acquiring Dollarstore, one of Sweden’s leading discount retail chains. The transaction was completed on 1 August 2023. Dollarstore currently has 130 Dollarstore stores in Sweden and four Big Dollar stores in Denmark. The newest stores opened their doors under the Big Dollar brand in Denmark in Hjørring and Holbæk in November.

In Finland, including the store to be opened in Katajaharju in Kouvola on Thursday 5 December 2023, the Tokmanni Group consists of 201 Tokmanni stores, six Miny stores, 29 Click Shoes stores and two Shoe House stores. In Finland, the Tokmanni Group also serves its customers through the Tokmanni and Click Shoes online stores.

Did you know this about working at Tokmanni store chain?

• Tokmanni Group Corporation is one of the leading variety discount retailers in the Nordics. In Finland, it employs an average of around 4,300 retail professionals. Around 600 of these employees work at Tokmanni's administration and logistics hub in Mäntsälä in logistics, procurement, finance and IT, among other functions. In Finland, the Tokmanni Group includes the discount retailer Tokmanni, the shoe store chains Click Shoes and Shoe House, and the lifestyle brand Miny. Outside Finland, the Group owns the Swedish discount retailer Dollarstore, which currently has 130 stores in Sweden and three in Denmark. Dollarstore has around 1,100 employees. Dollarstore is headquartered in Kista, Sweden, and has a warehouse in Örebro, Sweden.
• Work in the retail sector is fast-paced and interesting, and Tokmanni store chain’s employees find that variety is one of the most attractive aspects of working in a store. Tokmanni Group encourages and helps its employees to develop their skills and advance in their careers to various tasks and increasingly challenging roles within the company. Many employees have advanced several levels in their careers.
• The workplace community at the Tokmanni store chain is delightfully diverse. For example, more than 20 different native languages are spoken at Tokmanni stores. The average age of Tokmanni store chain employees is around 38 years, and a permanent employee stays with the company for an average of around eight years.
• When they start their job, every new Tokmanni store chain employee gets, among other things, their own orientation mentor who provides them with support during the early stages of their career. The mentor welcomes the new colleague and ensures, for example, that the employee has received adequate orientation and feels part of the work community. The new employee can ask their mentor whatever they want to know, with a low threshold. In addition, Tokmanni store chain provides all new store employees with joint training to ensure comprehensive and consistent induction.
• Tokmanni store chain also provides its staff with good personnel benefits, such as staff discounts on products and a wide range of benefits and offers from the partners in its personnel benefits programme.

The Tokmanni Group aims to expand its Tokmanni store network in Finland to more than 220 stores by the end of 2025. A list of the most significant changes to the store network between 2016 and 2023, as well as changes that will be implemented in the near future and that have already been announced, can be found at ir.tokmanni.fi/en/investors/tokmanni-as-an-investment/new_stores.


TOKMANNI


For further information, please contact:


Timo Heimo
Vice President, Sales and Supply Chain

Tel. +358 20 728 6051
timo.heimo(at)tokmanni.fi


Harri Koponen
Vice President, Store Network and Concept

Tel. +358 20 728 6030
harri.koponen(at)tokmanni.fi


Maarit Mikkonen
Head of IR and Communications

Tel. +358 40 562 2282
maarit.mikkonen(at)tokmanni.fi


Calls to a corporate number beginning with +358 20 7 from a landline or a mobile phone are EUR 0.0835 per minute + EUR 0.1669 per minute (incl. VAT 24%). Calls from outside Finland are subject to an international call charge.


Tokmanni Group Corporation is one of the leading variety discount retailers in the Nordics. Around 5,400 employees in Finland, Sweden and Denmark make customers’ everyday life and special occasions easier by offering a versatile and up-to-date assortment of nordic and international brand-name products and other high-quality products at prices that are always affordable. With more than 360 Tokmanni, Dollarstore, Big Dollar, Miny, Click Shoes and Shoe House stores and online stores, the Group is always close to its customers. In 2022, Tokmanni Group Corporation's revenue was EUR 1,168 million and comparable EBIT amounted to EUR 86 million. The Group's shares are listed on Nasdaq Helsinki.