Digitalization Is Reshaping Services, This Is Why a Webstore Has Become Mandatory

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Online shopping is now as routine as a trip to the grocery store and for many people far more common. In Finland, 82% of consumers made an online purchase within the past 30 days and among younger adults every second person shops online weekly. This isn’t a passing trend. It’s a permanent shift in how people live and buy.

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And yet, many Finnish SMEs still operate exclusively from a physical location, not because a webstore is a bad idea, but because setting one up has seemed complicated, expensive, and time-consuming. That is exactly the problem Vesko Oy was built to solve.

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What digitalization really means for retail

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Digitalization isn’t simply about having a website. It means the entire customer journey from discovering a product to making a purchase decision and receiving delivery increasingly happens in a digital environment. Consumers search online, compare availability across stores, read reviews, and then either click to buy or walk into a physical store.

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If your products aren’t visible online, you are not even part of that comparison. Research shows that 76% of shoppers want to confirm in-store availability before visiting. If that information isn’t available, they choose another store.

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The numbers make a clear case

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Finland’s e-commerce market was valued at approximately $8.7 billion in 2024 and is projected to nearly double to $17.24 billion by 2032. Growth is estimated at around 8–9% annually, clearly faster than traditional retail. Globally, e-commerce surpassed 20% of all retail sales in 2025.

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According to Deloitte, businesses with advanced digital capabilities grew their revenue 3.3 times faster than less digitally developed competitors over a three-year period. In Finland, 93% of SMEs have reached at least a basic level of digital maturity, but basic is no longer enough to stand out. The next step is a fully integrated, functional webstore.

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Why building a webstore has felt so hard

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Until recently, launching an online store meant stitching together multiple separate systems. An e-commerce platform, payment processing, inventory management, logistics integrations, and ongoing maintenance were all required. Getting everything to work together could cost tens of thousands of euros and the systems still didn’t always communicate properly.

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Vesko Oy, a webstore ready out of the box

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Vesko is a Joensuu-based startup that has built a Retail Operating System. It is one platform designed to replace disconnected tools. Through Vesko, a business gets an online storefront, payment processing, inventory management, a point-of-sale system, and logistics, all integrated and ready from day one, without expensive development projects or technical expertise.

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The principle is simple. Register, list your products, and Vesko handles the rest. Lower shipping costs, real-time stock visibility in Google Search, flexible payments, and a single inventory shared across both the physical store and the webstore are all available immediately.

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When 76% of shoppers want to see real in-store availability before visiting, having your stock visible online in real time means more customers choose your store before they even leave home.

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Going digital doesn’t mean abandoning your physical store

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Across the Nordic countries, 90% of purchases still happen in brick-and-mortar stores, but the path that leads shoppers there increasingly begins online. People research, compare, and decide where to go in advance. If you are visible when that decision is made, you are part of the competition. If you are not, you are invisible.

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Vesko doesn’t force businesses to become purely e-commerce operations. It provides the tools to be present where the customer journey starts, while keeping in-store operations running smoothly alongside digital sales.

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The right time is now

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Finland’s e-commerce market is growing steadily, consumer expectations continue to rise, and competition for online visibility is happening today. Vesko’s promise is straightforward. Any business can enter digital commerce without massive upfront costs, without technical expertise, and without guesswork. Digitalization isn’t waiting. The good news is that getting started has never been this simple.