Looks like Amazon prime is getting faster. I placed an order yesterday and just received a message from the Post that delivery is expected tomorrow.

THis used to take about 5 working days before.

Well, Amazon seem to be gradually improving their services to Switzerland. You can now get free delivery on orders over 35 EUR that are sold by Amazon and more 3rd party sellers are now offering shipping here too. I think it will have a big impact on the local retail market in the long term.

Doubt it given they are going up against the well established and superior Digitec/Galaxus

I got that turnaround from the UK without prime.

Not sure if serious.

Amazon is just too big and too dominant on the market. Although it costs me I always look for a local source.

If we don’t defend the locals and small businesses we are going to lose them.

How much does Amazon contribute to the Swiss economy? Besides the Swiss VAT that they now collect they pay no rents, no salaries, no taxes on their profits.

It is impossible to compete with a 650 tonne gorilla!

Amazons tax contributions are an absolute ****ing scandal, same with other similarly large companies. Their sense of societal and social responsibility vs the profits they make from all of said taxpayers is negligible. I really hope that this changes over the coming years.

Otherwise yeah, they will slowly chip away at every retail market worldwide. Switzerland must be one of the last Western wealthy countries that they have yet to get a grip on.

Companies are taxed on Profit & not turnover, which is why tax payments are low. If people did not send so much stuff back & after using items they would pay a lot more in tax.
Amazon min pay of $15 an hour is more than TWICE the federal min wage of $7.25

Serious

• They account for over 10% of all Swiss online shopping already
• Price match anything
• Next day deliver for free on almost anything (same day in some parts)
• Retail shops in Switzerland
• Swiss warehouses / supply chain
• Far superior online shop/filtering (subjective)
• Accessible multi lingual customer service
• No questions returns/refunds/warranty
• Have market place integrated into the platform
• Can resell through the platform and transfer warranty

Why would you order something from Amazon?

Actually the shopping experience is very good, they have very granular filtering criteria for MANY product categories, and their delivery time is insanely fast (more often than not you get next-day shipping if you order before X-time PM). Of course their assortment doesn't compare with Amazon, but if you do find what you're looking for, Digitec/Galaxus is extraordinary.

The cloud part of Amazon is opening up a region in Switzerland. That will be 3 availability zones made up of many datacenters. The cloud business of Amazon (known as AWS) has been in CH since 2016. If you look at their website you can see they have many jobs based in Switzerland and they do currently employ (and therefore pay swiss salaries). When they tackle the region aspect of their cloud business you often see the commercial component come in after. Fulfillment centers etc. that are needed for the commercial part of amazon will open in CH as part of the region. Alexa and Prime will follow as part of this too. This blog post has a section around their history in Switzlerand: https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/in-...h-switzerland/

Really? Please tell me more about this Digitec that I have been using on a regular basis for over a decade. Ok sorry guys, I'll drop the light-hearted sarcasm.

The bolded part are why people would use Amazon. There are many things in the world you can't get at Digitec or Galaxus and the prices on some items can be much cheaper on Amazon.

If something that you want is available locally for a good price then sure, buy it locally. If it isn't, use Amazon. I mean really guys, this is obvious logic.

In the last 48 hrs our washing machine gave up the ghost after 15yrs loyal service. We tried to source locally first but the digital presence of a lot of the small suppliers is awful to nonexistent. When we did find one the quotation was insane - same machine on Amazon DE for EUR699 whereas they wanted CHF2090 plus delivery & recycling costs etc.

In the end in a desperate attempt to avoid Galaxus/Fust/Mediamarkt et al we decided to replace the tumble drier at the same time and stumbled upon a retailer in St Gallen (we live on ZH/ZG/AG borders) who was able to significantly undercut the aforementioned retailers so they got our business for the 2 x machines.

We try to source locally but sometimes the service offering from the little guys is so awful you have no option - especially if it's a time sensitive purchase.

How does returns work in case of Amazon DE? For Galaxus, I could just go to their counters for smaller items

I really don't know how would work over here, but while we were living in Finland I order some good amount of item to Amazon DE and I had to return a huge Samsonite suitcase I ordered by mistake. I have to pay 30€ for the shipping beforehand and they were stating that they would only reimburse you 8€, however I complained and I got the 30€ back.

I think they want to expand to other markets and they are trying to make customers happy. I'm ordering quite some good amount of products to amazon DE just taking into account the max amount from where you have to pay customs 65 francs and that over 40€ you don't pay shipping.

I don't like amazon specially, but I only can find a lot of stuff easily there. Specially on these times that you can't shop around.

Oops, I seem to have accidentally ordered a new TV for one of our studios through Amazon.DE to be delivered in Switzerland. They've removed the German VAT and added an 'import deposit' of 10 francs, so is it safe to assume that it will just arrive with no problems?

(Was comparing prices with amazon.fr, who will deliver to a relais point a couple of km away in Chatel, and saw the price was lower in Germany, didn't realise I had set up payments methods for automatic 'buy-it-now option, so when I clicked on it to see the total it completed the order. Was only eu135, c/w eu160 on the .fr site; cheapest 32" I could find in CH was close to chf200. )

Yes I could cancel the order, but what could possibly go wrong?

It depends... Officially they will tell you they reimburse a ridiculous small amount, then you complain and get more back. But definitely not straightforward.

Well depends of what you call ridiculous, but I think they tell you up to 24 €.

They tell you up to 24 but I've never received the full postage without having to get in touch with them after they issued the refund. Actually last time I got the usual half postage refund and then later the full amount of the postage i.e. about 1.5 times what it cost.

It should arrive ok, amazon should have already taken the Swiss VAT but the TV will be German and I'd expect it to be expensive to return if you needed to.