Online shops in Switzerland, dying?

Steg, PC-Ostschweiz and Techmania got closed. Now Coop is closing their shop Microspot and including it in Interdiscount: Onlineshopping - Coop gibt Marke Microspot auf - News - SRF

It seems that online shops are slowly dying in Switzerland. Now you have Digitec/Galaxus and Melectronics from Migros, Interdiscount from Coop, Brack and Mediamarkt? Basically 5 shops?

5 might already be too many for such a small market.

they will also have competition from international sellers with better scale/cost economics. how will they compete with amazon, ebay, aliexpress, etc.

Amazon now automatically takes care of VAT, so it’s easier than ever to shop there. I guess what we’re seeing is a normal market reconsolidation.

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microspot was never under a good star. It was a forced solution to push microspot after the siroop failure, I think even the logistics facilities have been built for projected siroop volumes which never were realized.

I mean if you talk Onlineshops for home electronics 5 are many for switzerland. How many big stores you have in switzerland for food?

Interesting would be to see behind the scenes; rumors say that the competec group is offering dropshipping for many other well known swiss shop.

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I wouldn’t generalise on all online shops, when you mentioned only (a handful) in the notoriously low-margin computer/electronics sector (although that definitely lends itself particularly well for online shopping).

It remains to be seen if Interdiscount - or at least their online presence - will keep offering the more price-aggressive offers and promotions that Microspot has had. But so far I‘m reading this news merely as consolidating the brand.

Both Migros and Coop seem to be simply sticking to their most established brands: Migros has kept the Digitec brand around for so long (only in CH though) because of how well-established it was and still is. Although Digitec and Galaxus are basically the same store today, and their rebranding of their Digitec mobile phone subscription offer to Galaxus may forebode a broader transition to the latter.

Microspot however - in my view - never became as well-known or established as their InterDiscount brick-and-mortar brand. That’s why Coop are consolidating onto the latter.

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