Finland is TV and Print heavy market with mobile oriented citizens with almost everybody using internet of the 5,5 million inhabitants. Trust in companies and government is high in Finland.

Finnish grocery and convenience store market is divided between S-group (which Alepa is part of), Kesko and Lidl. S-group has 46% market share, Kesko 36% and Lidl 10%. The grocery market is 18 Billion Euro business yearly.

Finnish market has been very price oriented ever since Lidl entered the market in 2002.

Alepa as a local convenience store competes mainly against K-Market (part of Kesko), which is 4 times bigger in terms of market share. K-market has 11% market share and Alepa, operating only in the metropolitan area of Helsinki, a bit below 3%.

Alepa, a local convenience store owned by S-Group's local co-op HOK-Elanto, had dropped in its selection image from its main local competitor, K-Market. Alepa is chain operated and K- Market’s are owned by individual entrepreneurs, who have been receiving wishes for decades from their customers.

It was imperative to make sure that decline would be stopped and every Alepa would mirror better its local needs in its selection.

The race was not to make a wide selection of products possible, but the best fitted selection for just that area. Alepa had been doing this based on sales data previously, but no-one knew that.

In 2016 Alepa started receiving wishes from local customers, but they were indefinite and the process was slow, and a bit old-fashioned.

There was need for a speedier and more precise solution.

We built a chatbot that was connected to realtime stock data of the whole S Groups wide selection and let people to wish these products to their local block stores. Chatbot was built to Facebook Messenger: it was an app already in use in every urban shoppers phones, so the Block Wish came a superhit with 150 000 separate wishes that were turned around to the store in 48-72 hours from the original wish.

We were able to beat tour toughest competition in what they prized most: in personal service and selection image and Alepa sales increased continuously without lowering or discounting prices in heavily discount lead Finnish grocery market.