The purpose of this thesis is to investigate Russian shopping tourists from the standpoint of companies working in Lappeenranta. In addition the task was to find out how shops take tourists into consideration when they make decisions about products, services, etc. Issues to be researched were how tourists have affected the shops´ product and service decisions, how the shops find informa-tion about Russian consumers and also if the changes have affected Finnish clients.

The actual research was made with qualitative methods by introducing 5 big shops in the clothes and shoe industry in Lappeenranta. The interviews were conducted in April 2011by making theme interviews for the merchant or shop manager in the stores. The research receives support from the theory part, which is divided into four sections. It starts with overall information about Russian tourists in Finland. The next chapter concerns consumer behavior and topics related to that. After that we talk about marketing mix and then the last part is about costumer orientation in today’s business environment. The theory part was used as a basis for the interview.

Based on the results of the study all shops take Russian tourist into consideration. Most of them are trying to make the right kind of product offering and are regularly investigating Russian’s needs and wants. Based on the interviews Russian tourists come here to look for quality products and famous brands. Also answers revealed that shops need to offer customer service in Russian to make their service situations as good as possible.