Two months ago, Lidl opened its doors in Tallinn's T1 shopping mall, despite the fact that Selver has been operating there for a number of years. Now Lidl has also announced plans to open a new store in the capital's Järve Keskus next year. There is already a Selver in Järve Keskus, with Lidl previously preferring to build new stand-alone stores rather than set up in shopping malls.

"In the big cities, the number of plots needed has actually more or less run out and so, we have to see where we can fit in. For example, in Tallinn, the planning processes are very complicated and long, so it's already quite difficult to build a regular store. It's definitely easier in a shopping mall," said Katrin Seppel, Lidl Estonia's communications manager, who added that the company plans to continue with that approach in the future.

Selver does not feel unduly concerned by having a rival supermarket chain in the same mall.

"For the most part, there has been no change in market share. What we can say is that if Lidl has come in alongside us, it is more likely that the footfall in our stores has actually increased. We see that more customers are coming in, so people come to us to buy certain products and then buy other products from another store," said Mariann Järvela, Selver's communications manager.

That view was echoed by T1 shopping mall manager Tarmo Hõbe. The arrival of Lidl in the mall has also improved T1's previously flagging numbers, he explained.

"It is difficult to draw any definitive conclusions after just two months. Today, we can clearly see that people are moving between the two supermarkets, going to both, picking one product from one and another from the other, and then putting together a shopping basket that suits them. T1's footfall compared to previous periods is up by 25 percent," said Hõbe.

"The T1 Lidl store is definitely a big hit, and since we don't have any other stores closer to the city center, we really have a very high footfall here," Seppel added.

While having several supermarkets in the same mall is a fairly new thing in Estonia, it is already quite common in the Nordic countries.

"In Helsinki, it's hard to find a mall without three or four supermarkets next to each other. Everything there works very well, there is synergy and people have more choice," says Hõbe.

In Estonia, that trend has already been seen in malls such as Lõunakeskus in Tartu and Rocca al Mare in Tallinn.

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