kev.
You are totally right,goods here are just far to expensive,to much bling and not enough of the real thing for the average working person.My wife and I normally travel to the uk twice a year to buy our clothes,reasons being(1)it's far cheaper to pay for the flights and find so many bargains at sale times,(2)we just will not pay the ridiculous prices they want for goods here.(3)we get a nice little break for a few days,bargain or what!luckily we have family in the uk so accommodation is not an issue.
what I find about about Tallinn shops is that,they would rather have a low number of people through their doors and charge them crazy OTT(OVER THE TOP) prices,surely it is a far better marketing strategy to have a higher volume of people coming to you because of resonable prices,rather than scare them off with stupid prices,but I aint no marketing expert so I can only say how I feel,if people can find bargains in your store word gets around and you will always have a large volume of people through your doors.
As to these Hugo Boss,Joop,Versace shops etc etc(bling stores)I read that the average monthly wage here is around 7000-10,000 eek a month,am I missing something or do rich people out number working class people here,and the monthly salary statistics totally wrong.C'mon Estonia stop catering to the upper classes and start catering for the masses.
It also seems to me,that alot of these so called business men haven't grasped the concept of market research,what people really want and how much they can afford to pay.I live close to Pärnu mnt and have seen another shop open where Bang and olufsen used to be,another bling shop with big white leather sofa and a chandelier that wouldn't look out of place in Buckingham palace,oh and a couple of designer Italian lamps,and guess what three young pretty employees sat doing nothing,well maybe on msn.Not much imagination here at all as regards what other types of stores there should be,if one person starts selling designer kitchens at 200,000 eek a go every one in the same street does the same thing,take awalk up Pärnu mnt you'll see what I mean,Talk about keeping up with the Jones's(my neighbours got a new French poodle so I gotta have one too).

kev - Maxima and Rimi are your Walmarts and their profits go abroad further draining the economy... The Estonians never figured out low price leadership.

Still 80% of the population has got a job, maybe with previous salary. Everybody is not broke. It's just that the 20-25% of the population that is in trouble wrecks the margins (20%?) of companies and shops. Those with lower margin will go bust and their business is taken over by the ones with higher margins (and reserves). Natural selection.