1.65 here as of last Friday.

Tom

German stores are absolutely packed with Swiss consumers on Saturdays, so some people are voting with their feet.

And its still cheaper than Germany.....

I thought the rule was that it has to say "Assembled in..."

No. It has to do with Schweinshaxe, Wurst, Bratkartoffeln and tons of gravy.
Cook this with cleanest, best quality bio varieties of ingredients you can find, and you'll still be fat :-)

Yes, or packaged in or some other meaningless statement. "Made in" means that at least 50% of the value added must be in the country/region stated.

I think the key word is CHEAP, ergo the opportunity to eat more low quality fast food, which leads to weight problems.

Migros demands measures against too high prices on imported goods. Economics Minister Schneider-Ammann invites to a round-table conference

This coming wednesday, the federal minister will meet Migros-Chief Herbert Bolliger, and the price-supervisor plus WEKO (commission on competition) and producers, in-between-traders and importers at the Round Table. He wants to hear why the exchange-rates profits on imported goods are not handed onward to the customers.

The problem for the shops is acute, as they permanently lose customers to the competition on the other side of the border.

Migros-Chief Bolliger stated in the Migros-Magazin "The authorities should use their possibilities" He and former price-supervisor Rudolf Strahm most of all criticized that powerful manufacturers and distributors coordinate prices with each other, and make parallel imports impossible. Mr Bolliger and Mr Strahm demand that "vertical agreements" become prohibited with a new federal "urgency-law".

According to Mr Strahm, Switzerland due to such vertical agreements loses some 20 billions of CHF per year.

Professor Roger Zäch means that a new law is not necessary as the WEKO should use the term "market dominance" in accordance with article 4.2 in full, and declare the blocking of currency-profits as illegal MISUSE

Schneider-Ammann however is determined to improve the cartel-law, not least in regard to verical agreements (Art. 5.4) .

CVP leader Christophe Darbellay demands that the price-supervisor gets entitled to lower the prices of imported merchandise if the prices are more than 10% above those abroad. Also Darbellay demands a better law against vertical agreements.

Here the link to the article in the "Am Sonntag" of yesterday
http://www.sonntagonline.ch/ressort/aktuell/1778/

There you go, supporting the robber barons again. I said it was tender and delicious. Why pay more?

Switzerland in it's defence on prices, pays a lot more for the same products than any of it's neighbours. I was having this discussion with my plumber who could buy online cheaper (over the boarder) than the wholesale price (he had seen the invoices) of his supplier (Sanitas Trost). I think this is a major part of the problem, Swiss resellers have paid over the top prices (and then passed it along to the consumer) for so long that no one takes them seriously when (or if they tried) to renegotiate prices. Take a look at the price difference between UK and Germany for quality power tools or kitchen appliences and you will see there is no way retailers can control the massive difference in price, it comes from the manufacturer or producer and gets exagerated as everone adds their % margin.

Well at least it is Australian!!

Sorry - but who is 'Switzerland' in this context?

The consumer?
The shop/tradesman?
The distributor?
The importers?
The original producer?


Where does the 'paying more' stop - Someone is really coining it in. The CHF has appreciated massively in the last few years, prices on just about everything imported (except maybe price volatile stuff like oil products) should have dropped continuously and by a large amount over that time.

A drop of say up to 40% for Swiss importers for the cost of supplied products in the UK/Euroland due to the strength of the SFr would equate to about 5-10% drop in the retail price in CH. Hardly a large amount but if some retailers are not now passing on that saving, they soon will have to.

Why not support your local Turkish shop? Forget the robber barons, and pretend you are on holiday!

Somehow these shops manage to sell large selections of fruit, vegetables, turkish cheese, local yoghurt, frozen meat and frozen fish, local bread and cakes. And they are ALL way below the Migros and Coop prices.

The consumer and the shop/tradesman are Swiss
The distributor is either Swiss or the Swiss outlet of ...
The importers by nr are mostly CH but by size often foreign
The original producer in case of imports of course is foreign

Yes - so why does a 40% fall in raw import cost drop to only 5-10% reduction at retail???

We're always told that small input cost increases lead to large retail cost increases but apparently whopping decreases in the raw cost lead to only small decreases in the retail cost ... ?

B.S. Someone is making very tidy profits indeed - but I guess if the Swiss consumer is willing to cough up over the odds then ripoff Switzerland is as bad as ripoff Britain.

At some stage of course, the CHF will take a large tumble. You can bet that retail price rises will be quick to rise.

Which shows on one side what good businessmen many of them are, and shows on the other side that Migros chief Bolliger is a crook. His company in fact also is wholesale importer and even a EUroland producer. Last year he attacked Lidl and Aldi with exactly the arguments used by the opponents against Migros in the 1950ies, now his company PROFITTED from the currency situation endlessly, but out of a sudden he moves ahead with verbal attacks against profiteers. Same with Mr Loosli at Coop. For sure an excellent manager, but of course keeping profits back. Reducing prices by 2 or 3 percent is a nice gesture, but of course ways away from reality.


You guess what ??? How do you arrive at the weird conclusion that the Swiss consumer is willing to ....... ? The media for quite a while has been full of comments and complaints showing that the Swiss consumer is NOT willing ....

If you do not realize what there is in the media, it is YOUR mistake

Transport, import, admin, rent, wages, insurance, telephone, leasing, petrol, advertising etc. etc. etc. are the largest chunk in the final retail cost of products here in CH (as in any country). Guess what..... they are all paid in SFr.

I wonder if the OP was asking a rhetorical question

When I discuss prices with Swiss colleagues, I always get the same stock answer: "You are paid more here"

Using this logic, a millionaire might be happy to pay CHF 200 for a burger. A rip-off is a rip-off, regardless of your income. Another swiss gave me the stock answer this evening and it made my blood boil

If I mention this, I get the other stock answer: "you should leave Switzerland"

In any business there is a price people will pay, that price is not connected in any way with the price of producing the product. This is the reason why most of the US motor industry went bankrupt a couple of years ago. Selling a product below the cost of making it!

Salaries are high because costs are high....... If the prices were lower so would ExPat salaries.