I don't think that's really true though - I still think the majority of people living in Switzerland shop here. Most of my friends do anyway and we live in the border area where it's easy to nip accross.

Yes, OK, I admit sometimes we do a shop over the border and perhaps now with the exchange rate we do it more - but people living >10km from the border, people with no cars (which is still the majority here), do they really shop abroad?

I will admit that Kinder is probably the worst chocolate in the World but uncle Ben's lazy people rice (boil in bag) is probably the best, But as I said earlier, who are we? Only the customers and they are only doing this for their own benefit. not ours.

Still didn't get an answer on that point - are you sure that these things aren't directly imported? Why wouldn't they be?

And Coop and Migros is VERY different - Coop is 90% branded, Migros is 90% unbranded

I think you are correct in saying that most people shop locally. Living in Zurich to go and shop abroad would cost me more in petrol and time than what I would save anyway.

It is the reason according to the Sonntag Zeitung article (opening paragraph).

And it is a newspaper, since when have you started believing then?

What a load of nonsense.....that's trite and regurgitated Daily Mail stuff, I'm sorry to say.

My family complain to me about how the supermarkets FORCE them to buy straight cucumbers, perfect carrots, shiny apples. What bllx. You have a choice whether to shop there, you have a choice what to pick up once you are there, and if you want something different, buy something different from somewhere different.

Stores sell what people buy. Full stop.

And as I said before, this isn't about us as consumers - this is about Mars vs Coop, they want to see who blinks first. And Coop played a masterstroke by releasing a statement to say that they are standing up for the Swiss consumer.

It's interesting that a very large Migros in Basel has just had to halve its floor area due to the need for "optimisation", with the reductions falling on cosmetics, clothes and household goods.

http://bazonline.ch/basel/stadt/Migr...story/20189839

I don't think it's coincidence that this Migros is no more than five minutes' walk from a supermarket in Germany where cosmetics, clothes and household goods are often around 30% cheaper for exactly the same brands.

But they're not standing up for me are they? They're just annoying me. By deciding for me that I should not buy xxx because it's too expensive for them (not me, them). If they were saying "our customers don't buy your product because it's too expensive therefore we will stop stocking it" that's different altogether.

I dunno, just sucks. I want my kinder eggs and loreal shampoo in the coop and that's that. Baaaah humbug

Why are final customers used as a tool to push on cartels and laws who permit them?

Aren't customers these days, even here, smart enough to actually go and shop elsewhere? Most customers are certain times of the day in my local French Casino and Carrefour are Swiss anyways.

I think there is a middle man who chooses the same old products, ie limits the production line you see in Fr to a third, and all Migross-denner/coop/manor have exactly the same products, the same flavors of mayo, exactly the same barbie dreses, same detergents, etc. The choice is not done by the shops, me thinks. It will take a while to have different choice of dif retailers luring customers, like it is elsewhere, or producers directly importing here.

I do not think local folks are really that traditional and inflexible or not wanting more for their cash, but think it is rather pushed on them or they are used to being told what they want or should want for their francs.

__________________
"L'homme ne peut pas remplacer son coeur avec sa tete, ni sa tete avec ses mains." J.H. Pestalozzi

“The only difference between a rut and a grave is a matter of depth.” S.P. Cadman

"Imagination is more important than knowledge." A. Einstein

Actually I think that's more to do with the general failure of the Stucki centre as a whole, not the Migros store itself. Stucki was billed as such a huge oasis for shoppers when it opened, and it turned out to be a bit of a disappointment all round with a lot of small expensive shops in it.

Fair point - but they are standing up for the 95% who will be happy what they are doing....but I agree that they won't please everybody all the time

I very much doubt it (I'm sort of involved in this type of thing) - why would companies pay for somebody else to get involved in the middle of things - big companies like Mars, Nestle, Unilever etc spend a MASSIVE amount of time planning how to put their products in store eg in a 3 meter space selling salad dressing, mustard, mayonaisse, coffee, chocolate, anything - the manufacturers will take data from the store to prove that it you put the Dark Toblerone to the right of the normal Toblerone, it will earn them 0.2% more money than the other way around. Or that they analyse store card data to prove (true fact from another country) that people who buy dry dog food eat more corn chips - so they put a display on the end of the pet food aisle selling corn chips which increases the sales of corn chips by 5% in that store

The amount of money and efforts these guys spending on this stuff is amazing - so the idea that some bloke in a van chooses which coffee is right for all of Switzerland doesn't sound right to me

It does not to me either, but I have no illusions that in the name of "protecting" of the local market or final customer, there is some kind of licensing, middle party that allows certain product line limitations. To the extent of all those mentioned local retailers having the exact same products, while right around the corner in France, the producer sells the same, full line of products. Say teas, you only see the exactly the same choice of 5 types of Twinnings in all those CH retailers. So, somebody had to limit the production range and sold the same production range to all CH retailers. It does not make sense, but seems like there is cartel not only of the same old migroop et all, but also what gets allowed to be imported. Why on earth would manor have the same 4 barbie clothes, like migros? When there is about 300 different made. I do not think it is a decision of Mattel to distribute 4 types of Barbie clothes all over CH.

__________________
"L'homme ne peut pas remplacer son coeur avec sa tete, ni sa tete avec ses mains." J.H. Pestalozzi

“The only difference between a rut and a grave is a matter of depth.” S.P. Cadman

"Imagination is more important than knowledge." A. Einstein

This is just a tactic to reduce cost on some items due to the reduction of profit margin on them.....it's not that they're doing the customer any favor whatsoever....it's just to save themselves and manage their profits in the first place.

Rubbish chocolates

Rubbish sauces

Rubbish hair products

Wont miss much. Next piece of news!

Heidi Barbie
Badi Bardie

Er, what were the other two?

Awwww...is old news, though. These days Barbies have decrease boob sizes, increased wastes. Try to fit old clothes on new, more real looking Barbies.

I am continually amazed that people were surprised that a shopping centre in Switzerland was filled with small expensive shops.

Admittedly, it would have been fantastic (and more successful) if it had been the very first place in the whole of Switzerland to have EU/US style choice at EU/US prices, but I think that sort of expectation was always ripe for disappointment.

However, Migros blaming the public transport is hilarious when there is a bus stop with a 6 minute service directly outside, a tram stop no more than five minutes walk away, and the road connection is practically identical to that of the very successful and popular German supermarket up the road (which itself has much worse public transport connections).

Interesting press today on this

The text of this seems to support the "PR Coup" line, BUT I'm sure I saw on the front of another paper today (through the train window, so can't be sure) a headline criticizing Coop.

Setting aside the availability of Kinder eggs for a moment, this could be an interesting business case study in future years - the consolidation of both organised trade (Carrefour, Walmart, Tesco) and manufacturers (Kraft buying Cadbury, P&G buying Gilette, Mars buying Wrigley etc) means that bigger companies will fight with bigger companies and using the press and PR machines to get consumers on your side is a really interesting tactic (for business geeks like me )

Actually, it's Italian

Update: seen with my eyes, at the local Coop, employee sticking -50% adhesives on a bunch of Ben's fast cooking rice boxes and Kinder Pinguis, and 5-7 customers waiting in line after her to fill their baskets. To me, this proves the point of a massively naive ad campaign: if the non-restocking could have a sense in the bargaining, getting rid of the missing pieces as fast as possible seems...a bit surreal, and I don't really understand the sense.