A truck a day arrives at Nordby Supermarket outside Strömstad, filled with nothing but Pepsi Max. The store has had to set a limit on how many eight-packs of the soft drink each household can buy.
"We sell about fifty pallets a day now," says Patrik Zäll.
The soft-drink-hungry customers are approximately 98 percent Norwegians who cross the border to buy cheaper food. Last year, Norwegians spent 11.3 billion Norwegian kroner in cross-border shopping – about half of which in the area around Strömstad.
“Faster pace than expected”
Anne-Marit and Julie Kunz live in Sarpsborg and shop twice a month on the Swedish side.
"Cheese, eggs and herring are cheaper. And soft drinks, of course," says Anne-Marit Kunz.
They try to spend between 2,000 and 3,000 kronor each time.
"The kronor exchange rate has been bad for a while, but now it's better. Plus they're lowering VAT, so we'll save a few more hundred kronor,"
The reduction of food VAT from 12 percent to 6 percent on April 1 is expected to give cross-border trade a real boost. Kaj Hänninen, CEO of Hypermat in Charlottenberg, Värmland, believes that more Norwegians will now make their way there.
"We hear that customers are talking about this and they are not waiting, but we already have a higher rate than we were prepared for," he says.
Like several other stores, Hypermat changes prices down to the penny, and in the days before the reduction there are around twelve people in the store just working on changing all the signs and checking all the prices.
"It's an enormous amount of work," he says.
Sneaky
Nordby Supermarket sneaked in and lowered prices the week before April 1.
"There was an incredible rush of customers yesterday. They are very price-conscious," says Patrik Zäll.
Easter week is the biggest sales week of the year for cross-border trade, and this year another shift is expected because the VAT reduction takes place at the same time.
"Everything else is on hold now. All of us in the management team are working 100 percent in the store," says Zäll.
Silje and Thomas Røneid are pushing a fully packed shopping cart and an empty stroller; their daughter Signe is in a baby carrier. It had been a year since they last shopped at Nordby, and they had originally planned to wait until April 1.
"But then we saw that the prices had already been lowered, so we took advantage of it," says Silje Røneid.
"It will be much cheaper. A package of pasta costs 30 kronor in Norway and 18 here," says Thomas Røneid.
