[HN Gopher] Digitec Galaxus now displays warranty score and retu...
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Digitec Galaxus now displays warranty score and return rate
Author : faebi
Score : 969 points
Date : 2023-01-26 18:32 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.galaxus.ch)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.galaxus.ch)
| dboreham wrote:
| Presumably implemented with microservices.
| Annatar wrote:
| [dead]
| kioleanu wrote:
| I've seen this exactly in an online shop in Romania. Then they
| tried refusing my return of a product citing a gross
| misinterpretation of the law. They caved in after I threatened
| invoking the great goods of consumer protection. Found out
| afterwards that they're notorious for such gimmicks
| sixhobbits wrote:
| I love Galaxus! Most online retailers could probably increase
| their revenue by xx% just by copying some of their patterns.
|
| - price history so you can see when sales are fake
|
| - one click "deliver to my closest branch and I will pick it up
| and pay there so I don't have to muck around with online
| payments" option
|
| - automatic high quality translation of all product information
| and reviews into all offered languages
|
| - simple downloads on order page for invoice and receipt
|
| And many other things. Some things are still annoying like they
| don't accept cards from some countries, but they get a lot right.
| TrueSlacker0 wrote:
| > - price history so you can see when sales are fake
|
| in case you were unfamiliar https://camelcamelcamel.com/ does
| this for amazon
| ortusdux wrote:
| Cammelx3 is great. I like Keepa as well, especially the
| chrome extension that embeds the chart on the Amazon page. It
| also seems to have a bit more functionality.
| Krasnol wrote:
| The Firefox extension of keepa does the same btw
| lobocinza wrote:
| There's also keepa.com.
| [deleted]
| droopyEyelids wrote:
| In response Amazon did a lot to reduce price transparency. If
| you notice now most categories of items are constantly 'on
| sale' and even if camelcamelcamel picks up that fact, there
| are also 'coupons' available on-site for most amazon products
| that only alter the price under certain conditions and
| they're only applied at checkout.
|
| This makes it difficult for a human being trying to buy
| things to compare the prices, let alone a series of scripts.
| fire wrote:
| if memory serves camelcamelcamel gets their pricing data
| directly from amazon via a source they aren't allowed to
| disclose, and bloomberg has previously reported that amazon
| gives camel^3 the data they have; given that, i'm not too
| certain they're the cause of amazon's consistent reduction
| in transparency to consumers - a lot of it feels like cruft
| built into their marketplace allowing for bad actors to
| effectively play the marketplace
| arcticfox wrote:
| having personally built an internal tool that was much
| more aggressive than camelcamelcamel, I can say they're
| not doing anything special in terms of sources (or if
| they are, it's totally unnecessary)
| leo8 wrote:
| Was thinking about building such tool, but I couldn't
| come up with an idea where to source the data other than
| scraping it. Was looking especially for big price drops.
| 1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote:
| - 2,288 sitemap files see /sitemap.xml
|
| Amazon does not even support sitemaps. (They did in the early
| days.)
| huhtenberg wrote:
| Their whole web UI is a masterpiece.
|
| Super clean, very logical, everything exactly you'd expect it
| to be, superb filtering system for searching through long
| product lists, etc. It's also super-snappy, at least from
| within Switzerland.
| vbezhenar wrote:
| Access denied. But it was pretty fast, I admit. Zero JS, no
| weird CSS, just pure content. I almost liked it.
| karamanolev wrote:
| The price history going quite far back was a game changer for
| me when shopping from Digitec/Galaxus. They don't have
| _everything_ like Amazon, but the quality and the experience
| are on a whole different levels. Few levels above, actually.
| moffkalast wrote:
| The pricing is on another level as well.
| huhtenberg wrote:
| Believe it or not, but theirs are the lowest prices in
| Switzerland.
| ornornor wrote:
| I like galaxus too but they're not the cheapest. Most of
| their stock can be had cheaper from other online Swiss
| retailers.
|
| Toppreise and google shopping (yeah...) often can find
| better deals on the same items even after shipping.
| CaptainZapp wrote:
| That may be true. But overall their prices are pretty
| reasonable.
|
| Personally, I prefer paying a few francs more and in
| return get the certainty that I get what I ordered
| reasonably fast.
|
| I never had a problem with deliveries from them, alas,
| high ticket items I picked up personally.
|
| The only one time where they couldn't deliver a couple of
| USB chargers for a couple weeks because it was out of
| stock and the supplier couldn't supply I cancelled the
| pending order and had the money credited to my credit
| card.
|
| Not having to deal with some dodgy outfit is worth the
| slight surcharge to me.
| ornornor wrote:
| Same here. Its nice to pay a bit less but it usually
| comes with a headache when problems arise.
|
| I wouldn't pay 20% more but 5 or even 10% is reasonable.
| moffkalast wrote:
| Oh I believe it. But that's kind of like being the
| poorest billionaire, you're still a billionaire.
|
| With the EEA being what it is, I'm really surprised they
| can keep afloat since ordering from literally anywhere
| else ought to be cheaper just by labour costs involved
| alone. These days even Amazon.de doesn't get many of my
| orders anymore since they're reselling the exact same
| crap Aliexpress has for a quarter of the price.
| rafram wrote:
| I'm not sure what point you're making. How is that issue
| related to labor in Europe? Amazon US is all white-label
| Aliexpress stuff too, but the minimum wage here is
| literally $7.25 an hour, many states have zero sales tax,
| and there's no VAT.
| moffkalast wrote:
| Even if you're selling the same item you need to pay
| local rates for importing, handling, stock storage, etc.
| which are highly dependant on labour prices and real
| estate costs.
|
| As such if you're trying to sell to anyone who's not in
| the same purchasing power range or higher (aka literally
| nobody when it comes to Switzerland) you'll run into
| problems as you can't compete with vendors operating at
| lower costs in those countries. It's just basic
| arithmetic.
|
| That's what makes Switzerland one of the worst places one
| could manufacture and/or stock things and China one of
| the best. Exploitation of the poor is the optimal
| business choice, after all it's the very foundation upon
| which capitalism itself is built.
| saiya-jin wrote:
| I guess you never heard about Swiss import tax, and
| overall you don't seem very familiar with topic. They
| have no competition here, they offer maybe 50x more
| products than available in rest of eshops, and most have
| actually in warehouse. Stuff you simply can't buy
| elsewhere and its either not shipped into CH at all
| (thank you, Amazon) or at higher prices and utterly
| crappy warranty.
| lupex wrote:
| They are also expanding in EEA: Germany, France, Italy
| for sure. I don't know about other markets.
| Semaphor wrote:
| In Germany, they are usually close to the cheapest, but
| rarely the cheapest when I see them on Geizhals (price
| comparison site).
| lm28469 wrote:
| Stop a minute and think about the potential causes, it
| might be good for your wallet but bad for everything else
| lclc wrote:
| Electronics are actually cheaper in Switzerland than in
| most countries, thanks to low VAT.
| ornornor wrote:
| Not quite true, once you vos der VAT on these is 7% in CH
| but 20+% in the EU. Things should therefore be at least
| 13% cheaper in CH but they aren't because reasons.
| karolist wrote:
| But they are. At the risk of getting into specifics, all
| electronics I buy here are cheaper than in surrounding EU
| countries, the 256 GB version iPhone 14 Pro is cheaper
| than 128 base model in the EU, the Ultra watch is 850 at
| Apple store Switzerland (799 digitec), 999 at apple.de.
| Yes you can find rare counter examples, but I love
| Switzerland as a tech nerd, especially since CHF reached
| parity with EUR.
| ornornor wrote:
| The best deal (although it's a lot of hassle depending
| where you live) is to order things to Germany, go pick it
| up, get your papers stamped to get the 20% VAT back. Then
| pay 7% tax if worth over 300.- or no tax if less. But it
| takes time and isn't always worth the hassle.
| saiya-jin wrote:
| Most of electronics truly are, if they are sold
| officially here, even if eshop margins are a bit higher.
| And its closer to 8% on non-essential items (food, books)
| where its below 3%.
|
| _That 's_ how you do VAT, compared to all EU countries
| around who screw their population left and right because
| they have big public debts and getting worse, while
| employing armies of unemployable bureaucrats who do
| almost nothing and have ridiculous safety and social
| nets.
|
| The world could learn a thing or two on how Swiss run
| things in general and especially government stuff, but
| the problem is this is not transferable elsewhere, people
| are simply... different to be polite.
| eterevsky wrote:
| I don't think so. It might be a bit cheaper than in other
| European countries, but it's probably more expensive than
| in the US.
| LargoLasskhyfv wrote:
| Yes. Clicked around for a few things because I remembered
| their german branch from a few years, nothing has changed.
| At least not for the few parts I checked today.
| chaostheory wrote:
| > They don't have everything like Amazon
|
| They didn't seem to reach Day 2 yet either.
|
| If Bezos and company weren't being either disingenuous or
| delusional, Amazon has reached day two years ago.
| primax wrote:
| It's day 5. They've reached Oracle levels of bureaucracy
| and disregard for the customer.
| gesman wrote:
| Just spent 400 CHF at Galaxus, same day no charge delivery. Ho
| hassles.
| nix23 wrote:
| They where much better before the Migros takeover, especially
| the two owners just wanted to make 10k/month the rest goes to
| the customer, for a short time we had better prices as..well
| ....whole EU.
|
| But still it's the best we have...
| eterevsky wrote:
| It's also super easy to return bought products.
| gggggg5 wrote:
| >- one click "deliver to my closest branch and I will pick it
| up and pay there so I don't have to muck around with online
| payments" option
|
| That suggests a really sorry state of things, not something to
| copy. Online payments shouldn't be harder than physically going
| to a store and paying for the item.
| lm28469 wrote:
| > Online payments shouldn't be harder than physically going
| to a store and paying for the item
|
| Why ?
|
| It's probably more energy efficient to have trucks going to
| the few branches for pickups than to every single individual
| house.
|
| I don't see why it "shouldn't" be, especially since it's
| optional
|
| > That suggests a really sorry state of things,
|
| The really sorry state of things are people ordering toilet
| paper &co in same day delivery on amazon because they can't
| bother walking 5 min to the closest store
| gggggg5 wrote:
| >Why ?
|
| Is this a serious question? Why should online payments be
| so difficult that it makes sense to spend even 2 minutes
| getting out of the door and walking to a store directly
| across the street? You autofill your card information and
| click "pay".
|
| >The really sorry state of things are people ordering
| toilet paper &co in same day delivery on amazon because
| they can't bother walking 5 min to the closest store
|
| But why? It's cheaper on Amazon.
| kkarpkkarp wrote:
| > price history so you can see when sales are fake
|
| This is now a law enforced in European Union to display such
| history (at least the lowest price in last 30 or more days so
| customer knows if the price was not fake rised just before
| lowering it and calling it a sale). WooCommerce has a plugin
| for that now[1].
|
| 1: https://wordpress.org/plugins/wc-price-history/
| herr_gurke wrote:
| They implemented it before it was mandated by EU. IANAL but
| they didint have to implement it, since switzerland is not in
| EU
| wdb wrote:
| But Galaxus is also active/targeting Germany/Austria so
| they would have to implement it
| jcul wrote:
| Would that mean that amazon.fr / amazon.de would be required
| to provide that information?
|
| I've never noticed it, maybe it's not in an obvious place.
| kkarpkkarp wrote:
| depends if German and French gov already implemented this
| EU directive. Different countries implement it in different
| pace. For example Poland already has this law in power and
| amazon.pl is aligned to it.
| leo8 wrote:
| I just tried looking this up on Amazon.pl but I don't see
| it. are you sure about this?
| milosonator wrote:
| Switzerland is not in the EU.
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| > - one click "deliver to my closest branch and I will pick it
| up and pay there so I don't have to muck around with online
| payments" option
|
| I've started using this as much as possible, especially during
| christmas. You find something, "in stock", supposed to be
| delivered the next day or a day after, you order, then nothing
| one day, two days, three days, then you call, "yeah, it's still
| with the distributer, it'll be ready tomorrow", two more days
| pass, you call again, want a refund, they "cannot refund now",
| because the product is supposedly in the mail already, then you
| wait, christmas goes by, and around 15. january you get a call,
| that they cannot get the item you wanted, and try to upsell
| some either more expensive or worse option.
|
| Now I just order for physical pickup and "pay there" option..
| and if it's not there, cancelling is easy, because they don't
| have your money yet, and they cannot lie about the item being
| already sent.
| Abishek_Muthian wrote:
| In India when the major e-Commerce companies opened shop they
| realised that having just online payment wouldn't work due to
| inherent distrust with online payments, lack of card access
| etc. and so 'Cash on Delivery' where we pay to the delivery
| personnel was critical for their survival.
|
| Nowadays people prefer to use UPI[1] over cash in even local
| store counters making India the largest real-time payment
| transactions country.
|
| Its amazing that both of those happened within a decade,
| Largely synonymous with mobile compute & Internet
| penetration.
|
| [1]
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_Payments_Interface
| smcl wrote:
| You have more patience than me. If that happened to one of my
| orders I wouldn't just change from delivery to in-store
| pickup, I would simply stop ordering from that store
| altogether.
| foobarbecue wrote:
| What ajsnigrutin is describing recently happened to me with
| Lenovo (2nd offense) and backcountry.com (1st). It seems
| like companies are getting more "approximate" about their
| inventories :-(
| smcl wrote:
| Ah damn, that's gotta be pretty frustrating :-/
| drcongo wrote:
| I wish they delivered to the UK, I would switch so much of my
| online buying to them instantly for this. It's still incredibly
| useful as a resource when buying elsewhere though, I just wish I
| could reward them for this consumer advocacy.
|
| I just looked up a product I've had problems with - Netatmo
| Presence outdoor security cameras - and found they're rock bottom
| of the in-warranty returns list:
| https://www.galaxus.ch/en/s1/product/netatmo-presence-1920-x...
| borispavlovic wrote:
| They have few hundreds developers in Belgrade, Serbia
| https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/digitec-galaxus-doo/. I'm very
| proud of their work.
| cvccvroomvroom wrote:
| My mind is blown. I don't know how sustainable this is without
| manufacturers pulling products or filing lawsuits.
| brookst wrote:
| Game theory that. You're a manufacturer. This place sells a lot
| of your stuff. Do you sue them or pull your products? What is
| the EV of either action?
| snovv_crash wrote:
| This is the biggest online retailer in Switzerland, and they
| got to this position by being the most trustworthy. People will
| pay a small premium over other places because they know it will
| always arrive in good condition, quickly, with accurate
| descriptions and easy returns. There are also physical
| locations you can go to for pickup, returns, etc. if you need a
| person to speak to.
| sschueller wrote:
| The way they do warranty is really awesome and uncomplicated.
|
| Recently I had a set of headphones fail after ~1 year and all I
| had to do was find the item in my order history click a button,
| answer a few questions and in this case they just credited the
| amount to my account, didn't even have to send them back.
| Instructions told me to recycle them.
|
| There is a certain amount of trust in the system.
|
| However it can also go wrong. Once I sent a GPU for repair
| because a fan stopped working and it was still under warranty.
| Sadly they or their repair center marked it as a no fix, recycled
| the card and I was credited the amount I paid, sadly that was
| during the GPU crunch and a card that had similar performance was
| not available for even close that price. Replacing a fan I could
| have done my self but I thought a warranty claim would be the
| correct thing to do incase something else breaks.
| config_yml wrote:
| You can also re-sell a product you've bought there with a click
| and answering a couple questions, right from your order
| history. It's a pretty nice experience, just recently did so
| with a Dell screen I no longer needed.
| arp242 wrote:
| My experience is 15 years out of date, but back in those days
| many "big brands" insisted we only use their repair centres,
| and all we could do was ship stuff to them and hope for the
| best. Some were a little more flexible in this than others, but
| the flexibility was always very limited.
|
| Especially with components like mainboards or GPUs this could
| be awkward, because turn-around times were often weeks or even
| months. We usually just replaced them without too much fuss,
| and then a month later we were sent back a repaired spare part
| that could perhaps maybe be used for a repair later. We
| generally accepted this as a "cost of business", but never
| seemed quite right to me.
|
| While turnarounds on laptops were usually fairly decent, they
| could also be weeks, and replacing a EUR800 laptop on which we
| made EUR50 profit was kind of a non-starter. This also included
| stupid stuff like broken memory modules, or a broken hinge
| cover. The only way we could get reimbursed at all was by
| sending the entire laptop to them and hope it didn't take them
| 2 weeks to spend 5 minutes replacing a broken RAM module or
| something silly like that.
|
| My point in all of this being: it's not necessarily the store's
| fault.
| ddalex wrote:
| > a certain amount of trust in the system
|
| Switzerland operates on trust. You go to the car service, you
| get the work done, you leave, you'll receive a bill in the mail
| later. There is trust that they do the right work and not
| overcharge you, and there is trust that you'll pay.
| dguest wrote:
| Go to an unoccupied mountain hut, drink the beer, eat the
| food, use the wood for the stove, use the med kit (better to
| leave the morphine...), sleep in the beds, take some of the
| local cheese, and then leave your payment in the cookie tin,
| using the other few hundred CHF already there to make change.
|
| Just be sure to mark everything in the ledger, so the hut
| warden can replace it easier.
| ryanwaggoner wrote:
| I'd really like to experience this. Is this something I
| could do on a week-long hiking trip? Where can I get more
| info?
| moonchrome wrote:
| Considering how many of my Balkan countrymen moved there I
| doubt this works.
| saiya-jin wrote:
| I've experienced this even in French mountain huts,
| during winter there is no guardian and usually only part
| of the hut is available for whoever comes. Use fuel, any
| other material, leave some money behind. Everybody
| chipped in. Pretty good to keep them running long term,
| it ain't easy or well paid job.
| bauruine wrote:
| They are only reachable by multiple hours hiking high up
| in the mountains. That's a lot of "work" just for the
| chance of a few hundred CHF.
| moonchrome wrote:
| This is true - hikers are usually self selecting that
| way. But the sentiment doesn't hold in general I'd say.
| tbalsam wrote:
| Backpacker territory has a certain kind of trust.
|
| Being that close to nature long enough does things to a
| person. It's outside of something easily described with
| any human words.
| leo8 wrote:
| That was nicely described. I can totally understand it.
| Never thought about it that way :)
| lwkl wrote:
| Switzerland is pretty effective at assimilating second
| generation migrants thanks to the dual education system.
| The kids of your countrymen are probably all in middle
| class jobs and raising a family.
| aix1 wrote:
| Could you expand on the education system and how it helps
| assimilate second-generation migrants? Thanks.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| impressive. Especially the morphene
| nerpderp82 wrote:
| In NZ and Australia I really enjoyed the farmers selling
| items along the road in little boxes. Carrots, fruit, etc.
| All on the honor system.
| Semaphor wrote:
| That's also a thing in rural Germany.
| saenns wrote:
| it's also a thing in Santa Cruz, CA
| californical wrote:
| Yup also common in the Midwestern US
| hcrean wrote:
| Also a thing in parts of rural England. I have a walking
| route that takes me via ~12 of these stalls because they
| are the ones that sell local Honey. All are money-in-the-
| tin operations.
| aliqot wrote:
| Is this a thing? People do that?
| wingworks wrote:
| Oh yeah, 100%, just last week I went to an unmanned stall
| by the road and bought some beans, left the money in the
| jar.
|
| Pretty common round here. (in NZ)
| agys wrote:
| On the country side you can buy fresh fruits from small
| unattended shops on the side of the roads: you take a
| fruit basket and leave the money in a jar. (I only saw
| this in the Swiss German part, though).
| aliqot wrote:
| I'm familiar with the roadside produce and the honor box,
| but for some reason an actual dwelling being open to all,
| or to just be assumed that by default it is open to all,
| I guess caught me off guard. Assuming something like that
| would be open to all, here, would be a dangerous
| assumption on my part. I don't think I initially took
| into account the extreme weather conditions during that
| time, which in retrospect makes a lot more sense.
| [deleted]
| flakeoil wrote:
| It's common in the Swiss French part too.
| alex_suzuki wrote:
| Spending a couple of hours hiking up a mountain? Sure.
| Short-changing or even robbing the warden? I hope not.
| Schroedingersat wrote:
| In reasonably prosperous societies that take care of all
| their members and lack the cult of individualism, this is
| quite normal. Visible inequality, corruption, systemic
| persecution, and dire poverty tend to erode trust.
| brainwad wrote:
| Perhaps... But Switzerland is one of the most atomised,
| individualistic societies I've lived in. Swiss social
| trust mostly comes from an abundance of means, as far as
| I can tell. When you've got a full belly and a roof over
| your head, crime just isn't as attractive.
| lolc wrote:
| Sure, many cabins operate on a honor code. People hiking
| in this harsh environment respect the hospitality. If you
| don't have that kind of respect around the mountains, you
| won't fathom going there anyway.
|
| And yeah, it's a high-trust society. In some farms you'll
| find a fridge where you can get local produce and leave
| your payment in the box. Especially so in the mountains
| where they make their own cheese. You'll find me lugging
| a nice cut of cheese back home from a Sunday hike. That
| box will be locked though, because there's more people
| passing than at a remote cabin :-)
| xenadu02 wrote:
| In wilderness parts of the US you are usually allowed, by
| law, to break into unoccupied cabins/homes in critical
| situations (eg blizzard, you're lost, etc). You're
| required to leave identification and contact info and pay
| for any damages and/or supplies used.
|
| Often people just leave remote dwellings like that
| unlocked and stocked with supplies, sometimes with a
| signature book and/or donation box. For larger places
| some people even build a separate cabin next to the main
| house for travelers to use.
| shard wrote:
| Amazingly enough this can happen in the US as well. About
| 15 years ago I went to a sleepy little town in Northern
| California (might have been near Novato), where there was a
| used bookstore with nobody working. You pay what you think
| the book is worth, and just put your money in the tin by
| the door. Wonder if that bookstore is still around.
| dd36 wrote:
| That's how grocery stores work now.
| saiya-jin wrote:
| We have one such local produce shop in our village in
| western Switzerland. Nobody around, there is scale, you
| can pay digitally by Twint (or leave cash). Tons of farms
| around have ie chicken eggs or wine grapes or other
| products with (weather-proof) tin box (or QR code sticker
| for Twint) and scale for weighting, nobody around and you
| just go and take what you want.
|
| Then I go home to eastern Europe (we call it central
| Europe back home, lol nobody wants to be branded as east
| European since it reeks of russian association which for
| a long time means something very negative) and
| kleptocracy is visible literally everywhere on all levels
| of society, its nauseating beyond any tolerance from
| me... Its impossible for me to accept it once I've
| experienced much better society. One of the reasons to
| never move back and not raise kids back there, even if
| whole family is far (which is not always a bad thing).
| david927 wrote:
| When I was living there, I was told that you could go to a
| rug store, see a beautiful say, Persian Carpet worth
| thousands, and they would say, take it home and try it out.
| If you liked it, you came back to pay. They didn't take your
| information, just your name. I didn't try it but I believed
| it. Switzerland was very much that way.
| kuboble wrote:
| > absolutely that! Coming from a country with very low trust
| both ways I was surprised that the swiss car mechanic (big
| chain from vw) didn't allow me to pay at the shop and didn't
| even tell me how much it will be because he'll calculate it
| later.
|
| Also the fact that most online businesses allow late payment
| via invoice shipped with the goods feels crazy.
| iwangulenko wrote:
| Love this and it is true that trust is higher here, also lots
| of (high value) things are sold on tutti (ebay / fb
| marketplace of Switzerland), yet the country becomes
| increasingly a "normal" European country and trust decreases,
| also regarding salaries, self promotional plug:
| https://twitter.com/iwangulenko/status/1618865433108688896
| dguest wrote:
| The best part is that the penalty for not paying is just a
| bigger bill from the same garage.
| layer8 wrote:
| How much has your bill increased by now?
| muro wrote:
| They have a pretty efficient system to force payment if
| you don't after multiple reminders.
| LarryMullins wrote:
| > _they or their repair center marked it as a no fix, recycled
| the card and I was credited the amount I paid, sadly that was
| during the GPU crunch_
|
| I bet somebody kept that GPU, fixed it, and flipped it.
| lolc wrote:
| Can confirm, I had that happen with a cable. I filed a warranty
| claim and the response was "you dispose it, we credit it". When
| a second cable broke (oh no) they wanted me to send it in
| though.
| lobocinza wrote:
| I had this experience with Logitech and Anker.
|
| Logitech actually ended up sending me two keyboards. First
| they sent me the same model but with a different layout (but
| still usable) and when I complained about the layout they
| sent me a more expensive model with the expected layout. No
| returns, few questions asked. Excellent RMA experience but
| that being said their mechanical keyboards AFAIK all have
| some sort of chronic issue and just aren't worth the price.
|
| Anker didn't ask me to return the earphones but refunded only
| 1/3 of what I paid (6m remaining in a 18m warranty). Mixed
| feelings about it though the experience was positive. On
| general I expect things to last a lot more than the warranted
| period. Anyway I still have the earphones and they still work
| (with reduced functionality) so let's say that I remained
| with a residual + the refunded amount.
| gambiting wrote:
| >>all I had to do was find the item in my order history click a
| button, answer a few questions and in this case they just
| credited the amount to my account
|
| Exactly the same as with Amazon here in the UK then. They have
| every retailer in this country absolutely beat on their
| approach to customer support - it's always no faff, easy, often
| instant refund, none of this waiting 60 minutes on the phone to
| speak with unhelpful CS for any of the major retailers. John
| Lewis were the only ones approaching Amazon in the quality of
| their customer service, but recently that has changed for much
| worse and they are as hostile as everyone else.
| _puk wrote:
| As long as it's within 30 days..
|
| Consumer laws give a much longer window, and the retailer is
| responsible for resolving the issue [0], but any time I've
| had to try and get something replaced after the time limit
| it's involved going back to the original seller, hoping they
| still exist in the world of random TM company names. Never
| understood how Amazon gets away with this.
|
| 0: https://www.which.co.uk/consumer-rights/advice/what-do-i-
| do-...
|
| "The retailer is responsible If what you've bought doesn't
| satisfy any one of the three criteria outlined above, then
| the retailer that sold it to you is in breach of the Consumer
| Rights Act.
|
| This means that your statutory consumer rights are against
| the retailer - the company that sold you the product - not
| the manufacturer."
| arp242 wrote:
| This is essentially the same as the EU laws. However, my
| experience in the UK (pre-Brexit) is that these kind of
| laws are commonly ignored, For example, the same (EU) laws
| require that the _full_ price is always displayed up front
| and that you can 't tack on costs later. But e.g.
| ebay.co.uk has it hiding behind some link with some
| misleading language that makes it appear as if selling
| stuff is free (it's not). None of the other EU ebay.tld
| sites had that when I checked at the time: they always
| displayed the price on front.
|
| I also had some other service where they advertised a
| particular price, and _after_ filling in my personal
| details to order the service there was suddenly an extra
| mandatory charge which doubled the total price. wtf?! This
| was 100% illegal. I stopped as that was too much for me and
| they even had the guys to call me out of bed _in the
| weekend_ to try and sell me their stupid stuff. I gave an
| unfiltered version of my opinion on that.
| gambiting wrote:
| I've had Amazon refund me even a full year after purchase,
| no problem. Basically you go on chat, say you have a
| problem with some item, they say "please contact
| manufacturer" to which you say "I'd like you to resolve
| this problem under the consumer rights act as you are the
| retailer who sold me this product" and 10/10 times they
| just go "ok, would you like a refund or a replacement".
| Then I have the refund 10 minutes later. I've had hundreds
| and hundreds of orders from Amazon in the last few years
| and this hasn't failed me once.
| growt wrote:
| I had the opposite experience. Bought a 75" tv there. It had an
| extremely uneven backlight (clouding). Support told me to send
| it in for inspection. Tv broke on the way there. They kept it
| for three weeks and sent it back without mentioning that the
| panel was broken on arrival. After that they refused to cover
| it because it was my fault for not packaging it correctly. We
| finally settled on 50:50, so I got half my money back
| ROTMetro wrote:
| The having to ship it back is a problem with a lot of
| warranty these days. I have a BenQ monitor that started
| failing after less than a year, but since I don't have the
| original packaging I can't get warranty work. As TVs/monitors
| get larger, are we really expected to keep all of that
| packaging in case of warranty issues? I'm just eating the
| loss and will add BenQ to my list of no-gos but there needs
| to be a better system for this.
| chmod775 wrote:
| > are we really expected to keep all of that packaging in
| case of warranty issues?
|
| Depends on where you live and your consumer protection
| laws. In some places there are laws/rulings stating that
| no, you don't need to keep original packaging - especially
| for statutory minimum warranties.
|
| If there are no laws it's up to the discretion of the
| seller.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > I have a BenQ monitor that started failing after less
| than a year, but since I don't have the original packaging
| I can't get warranty work.
|
| In the EU, to exercise your mandatory 2 year warranty, you
| are not required to use original packaging by law, but
| manufacturers may require original packaging to honor
| extended warranties.
| modoc wrote:
| With BenQ you can ask for a swap, they will put a hold on
| your credit card, but will ship you a new display, you can
| send your old one back in the new packaging, pre-paid
| shipping label, and once they receive it, they release the
| hold. Costs nothing and you don't have to go without a
| display.
| rconti wrote:
| (In the US) I deal with the manufacturer for warranty claims.
| How does the retailer know?
|
| Is the system different in Switzerland? Or has this one
| retailer decided to take on being a arbitrator of warranty
| claims?
| arp242 wrote:
| The idea is that as a consumer, I made a contract of sale
| with the retailer, not the manufacturer or anyone else. So,
| if there's a problem I go to the entity I have the contract
| with, i.e. the retailer.
|
| You can often claim warranty with the manufacturer if you
| want; depending on the item. It can be faster to do so, but
| you're not required.
| pifm_guy wrote:
| In Europe, by law it is the retailer responsible for warranty
| claims.
|
| Many manufacturers will _also_ offer warranty service, and it
| is up to you the customer which you want to use. Often
| manufacturers try to persuade you to contact them first
| because it costs them less than a refund would (typically
| retailers just refund rather than attempt a repair or
| replacement)
| [deleted]
| sschueller wrote:
| The law requires the retailer to deal with warranty claims.
| The law also requires a 2 year warranty minimum. Additionally
| a retailer must take back old electronics and recycle them at
| no cost to the customer.
| acchow wrote:
| This sounds like pretty much how we use our credit card's
| extended warranty on purchases, except we do it via the bank's
| website (Chase or Amex, our credit card issuer), instead of the
| retailer. A couple clicks, and done.
| fancazzista wrote:
| If you're not home and the package doesn't fit your mailbox,
| they will just leave it in front of the door of the apartment
| complex. Lived there for two and a half years and nothing was
| ever stolen.
| greenthrow wrote:
| This is just straight up an ad. This should be removed.
| Annatar wrote:
| [dead]
| Too wrote:
| Ad or not, I found this concept and the data very novel and
| interesting.
| faebi wrote:
| Not really, I don't work for Migros, Galaxus or Digitec. I'm
| just a happy customer who likes their moves to more
| transparency.
| mikl wrote:
| Any product announcement is an ad. This happens to be an
| interesting innovation in online retail, quite on point for
| this site.
| greenthrow wrote:
| I obviously disagree. Reviews are not a new thing. Yes this
| is a slightly different spin on it but ultimately it is less
| information than reviews since we don't know _why_ things
| were returned.
| mikl wrote:
| I don't see how you can equate this with reviews. Reviews
| are almost useless these days, because they can be (and
| are) spammed by bots and only a small minority of real
| buyers post reviews.
|
| But since returns are handled by Galaxus themselves, these
| numbers can't be easily fudged. You'd have to actually buy
| the product and return it to negatively affect these
| scores.
| imp0cat wrote:
| Guerilla marketing at its best. ;)
|
| But then again, they only ship to Switzerland, no? So what do
| they gain from exposing the site on HN?
| rrgok wrote:
| Even tough I like this feature. The title is misleading. It
| doesn't show the return rate of the product you are seeing.
| Example,
|
| Go here, randomly chosen
|
| https://www.digitec.ch/en/s1/product/yamaha-rx-v4a-52-channe...
|
| And then scroll down and click warranty and then click "Detailed
| view", it says
|
| > How often does a product of this brand in the <<AV Receiver>>
| category have a defect within the first 24 months?
|
| This doesn't mean what the title says, right? I'm not a native
| english speaker, but I hope my reading skill is not that bad. I
| read it like: Yamaha return scores in "AV Reciever". If Yamaha
| had 100 product in "AV Reciever", it doesn't say almost nothing
| to me regarding the Yamaha RX-V4A I'm seeing. It could be that
| all 3% (example number) defect are Yamaha RX-V4A, or completely 3
| (assuming Yamaha has 100 different products) different products.
| sureglymop wrote:
| Click on "Returns" instead of "Warranty".
| rrgok wrote:
| It says almost the same: "How often is a product of this
| brand in the <<XXXX>> category returned"...
|
| It doesn't says how often the product I'm seeing is returned.
| But A product of the brand BBBB in the category XXXX is
| returned.
|
| I don't know, it is still a useful metric nonetheless. But it
| is still a misleading title.
| rippercushions wrote:
| Identifying a "product" isn't as straightforward as it seems.
| Large retailers insist (and get) custom product codes from
| major manufacturers, which are just a different code slapped
| onto the same box, but accomplish the goal of making price
| comparisons impossible. And then you've got more legitimate
| reasons for different codes, like the same physical product
| ships with 27 different types of power plugs, warranty leaflets
| etc for various countries.
| sakex wrote:
| Didn't expect to see Galaxus here, i buy all my stuff there
| odysseus wrote:
| I'd like to see Amazon do similar and make this data available
| publicly on each product's page.
|
| Some return rate data is currently figured into "Amazon's Choice"
| labeling - for example, low return rate on an established
| product, more likely to be labeled Amazon's Choice.
|
| But I'd like to see if Amazon has the guts to just make it all
| public.
| j7ake wrote:
| My experience with returning on Galaxus was very positive. Nobody
| does it better!
| mirekrusin wrote:
| After moving from UK to Switzerland I was missing Amazon until I
| discovered galaxus/digitech. It's great and feels so much faster,
| amazon has tons of clutter and dishonest reviews. Historic price
| is awesome, the whole thing is just much more honest.
| cranekam wrote:
| Amazon is miserable unless you know what you're looking for. If
| I have to search for something it's almost game over
| immediately -- I'm not going to wade through page after page of
| cheap junk with no sensible way to filter the results.
| aphroz wrote:
| Interestingly enough, the culture of returns in Switzerland is
| very different compared to the US.
|
| Also the quality of service vs price makes it a very appealing
| market but very hard to penetrate. This is why international
| players have always had issues to do so. Swiss customers care
| more about quality than price.
|
| On Galaxus you can decide to chose slow delivery so you will not
| necessarly receive your product the next day. But for the same
| price: https://basic-tutorials.com/news/galaxus-and-digitec-now-
| del...
|
| Edit: added link
| posix86 wrote:
| This might be a factor but it must be stated that the primary
| reason why international players had trouble penetrating Swiss
| markets was due to trade regulations which prevent retailers to
| sell anything duty-free or at a reasonable duty in Swiss
| markets. This is why Amazon et. al. don't even attempt to sell
| there; you're simply not competitive if you have to add 8% or
| something on top of every item.
|
| If you open Amazon from Switzerland and search for anything at
| all, you do get tons of products that seem nice & at a
| reasonable price, but click on any of them and it will say that
| the vendor doesn't ship to Switzerland. And this is when you
| set your location to Switzerland! There's no way to filter for
| products that ship there, Amazon simply doesn't bother.
|
| This is why e commerce stores like Galaxus & Digitec (the tech-
| products twin of Galaxus) were even capable of getting so large
| in Switzerland, while in other countries any competition was
| swept away by Amazon.
|
| There are some exceptions to this, e.g. Zalando, a clothes
| retailer, does deliver into Switzerland... I know that they
| have large logistics centers in Switzerland and basically send
| their products b2b, maybe that doesn't pay off for Amazon? I
| don't know.
| ahtihn wrote:
| This sounds a bit surprising. Tons of online clothes
| retailers ship to Switzerland.
|
| 8% doesn't matter that much, you'll see bigger differences
| than that for the same item between different retailers
| within Switzerland. A lot of people here don't shop around
| and aren't _that_ price sensitive.
| barrkel wrote:
| That's not quite right. I'd say about 80% of products I find
| on amazon.de are delivered to Switzerland. If Amazon is
| handling the logistics, then they normally deliver. They
| don't need to charge German VAT and Swiss VAT is a lot lower.
|
| Duty is more relevant to food products. Meat is the big one.
| If you like meat, it's very profitable to take your whole
| family on a trip to a German supermarket across the border,
| since prices are ridiculous in CH and the meat is low quality
| - particularly the beef, which is from "dual purpose" cows,
| where "dual purpose" is like 95% milk cows.
| extua wrote:
| A 'slow delivery' option is a great idea. There have definitely
| been a few times when I've ordered something and would've been
| totally happy for it to arrive any time within the next few
| weeks. At the same time, it would need a different kind of
| delivery service which isn't totally optimised around speedy
| delivery.
| eterevsky wrote:
| Slow delivery for Galaxus means in a couple of days instead
| of tomorrow.
| Matumio wrote:
| So far I got the same "day after tomorrow" with that
| option. But it just seems a nice box the check when it
| doesn't matter.
| amf12 wrote:
| IIRC, Amazon has an option to delay delivery and you get some
| credits.
| jchw wrote:
| One weird thing is that it seems like they play a bit fast
| and loose with the actual meaning of this. Several times
| I've ordered for "Prime day" because I didn't care and then
| later got a notification because they just shipped it early
| anyways. No real complaint per se, but it was still odd.
| amerkhalid wrote:
| Yes, you get digital credit. It is great for buying Kindle
| books or renting movies.
| LazyMans wrote:
| Prime delivery day is awesome, especially sharing the same
| house with someone that orders excessively. We tend to
| order things throughout the week, then have to deal with a
| mountain of shipping waste. Prime delivery day condenses
| the orders as best possible. It's not like I need every
| single item within 24 hours...
| numlocked wrote:
| Somewhat tangential, but can't help sharing: It's
| counter-intuitive, but you should feel good ordering
| things with same-day delivery, even if you don't need it
| and it "feels" wasteful. Energy-intensity of delivery
| basically boils down to "did it go on an airplane?". If
| so, it has a ton of emissions associated with it. If not,
| it doesn't. And (of course) the less distance the item
| has to travel, the less emissions. If it can be delivered
| same-day, then it's not going on an airplane, and it's
| not traveling very far.
| wendyshu wrote:
| Oh, how?
| crazygringo wrote:
| You need to have Prime, and it usually requires you to
| have 2-3 items in your cart.
|
| But if they're items that would normally ship in 1-2
| days, then it will provide a credits option if you have
| an Amazon Day (day of the week for combined deliveries)
| selected and that Amazon Day is at least 3 days in the
| future. It will also sometimes instead show a "no-rush
| shipping" option that is usually something like 5-7 days
| out, with credits.
|
| I'm not going to lie, I almost always select it (even
| constantly changing my Amazon Day to be at least 3 days
| out from today), and I'm pretty sure I make back my Prime
| membership fee and then some. The credits are usually
| $1.50-$4.50 per shipment, expire after 3 months, and can
| only be used for digital purchases like Kindle and
| videos.
| cma wrote:
| Seems similar to "Amazon day" delayed delivery.
| amerkhalid wrote:
| > the culture of returns in Switzerland is very different
| compared to the US
|
| I am curious, how is it different?
|
| Here in the US, I have met seen whole spectrum where some
| people will never return anything even if it is obviously
| defective. And others who will return almost perfect items for
| tiny issues or for not meeting their expectations.
|
| I am not sure how I would define the US return culture.
| jsnell wrote:
| I've spent a five-digit sum at Galaxus/Digitec, and never
| returned anything. So the typical product having a 3% return
| rate is quite surprising.
| oezi wrote:
| As an avid user of Geizhals/Idealo price comparison sites I
| wonder why you pick Galaxus over other reliable retailers.
| bauruine wrote:
| The filtering system was way, way better than everything
| else we had for a very long time and they often also where
| the cheapest. I write was because honestly I haven't
| visited many other shops for quite some time. But whenever
| I check on toppreise it's only marginaly more expensive
| then the other shops. It's convenient to have everything
| from the same shop where you know you have it the next day.
| And the "Geiz ist geil" mentality just doesn't realy exist
| in Switzerland.
| _zoltan_ wrote:
| because I care more about service than about 5 CHF.
| jsnell wrote:
| Their website - and tech in general - are way better than
| the competition. Their prices are competitive (sometimes
| the best, sometimes not, but rarely an unreasonable rip-
| off). I often prefer local pickup over mail. They already
| have my information on file, I don't need to futz around
| with making an account.
|
| Price comparison sites are fine if I know exactly the item
| I want, less so if I just have an idea of the category.
|
| It's not that I buy everything there. But it is my default
| option.
| h0h0h0h0111 wrote:
| Reliability, consistency, convenience, laziness. I know by
| and large if something goes wrong, Galaxus will just refund
| me no questions asked. Having tried some other retailers
| (that I found on toppreise)... that was not always the case
| layer8 wrote:
| Not the GP, but for the products I look for Galaxus has
| occasionally been among the cheapest.
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| Because consumer protection is nonexistent and it's easier
| to just go with Digitec/Galaxus where you already have an
| account than figuring out if this dealer is trustworthy,
| shipping in a reasonable timeframe, and whether they will
| be a PITA to sign up with.
| cosmodisk wrote:
| I have a feeling not many Swiss buy a satnav, go on a two week
| trip with it and then return just before the return policy
| ends.
| sschueller wrote:
| Switzerland didn't have the kind of return anything for any
| reason culture as the US has had for a long time. The fact
| you can return a non defective item is something newer and
| you still find retailers that will not take your item back
| unless it is defective.
|
| So you don't see people to go Jumbo (home depot equivalent)
| buy a tool and return it a week later after the job is done
| to get a full refund.
|
| In fact even digitec/galaxus will charge you a 10% restocking
| fee if you opened the item and it isn't not defective in
| anyway.
| gggggg5 wrote:
| I have a feeling not many people buy satnavs in 2023.
| nix23 wrote:
| Many...if your on a mountain and your touchscreen is
| literately frozen you wish you have a other one...also if
| you have to trust in a technology you better have 2 devices
| or a additional map and a compass.
| imp0cat wrote:
| I heard people do this with expensive cameras and
| equipment. Instead of renting, they can buy one for a
| vacation, then return it when they get back home.
| cosmodisk wrote:
| It was a reference to bygone days, but the practice wasn't
| that uncommon in certain Western countries...
| jb1991 wrote:
| > Interestingly enough, the culture of returns in Switzerland
| is very different compared to the US.
|
| The culture of returns in all of the EU, too, is very different
| than the US.
| gggggg5 wrote:
| How is it different?
| jb1991 wrote:
| For starters, EU law _requires_ the right to return no-
| questions-asked within a minimum 14 days (many places honor
| 30 days).
|
| In the US, there is no such law, though many retailers do
| it anyway. Some states, however, have implemented such
| laws, but it's not nationwide.
| cvccvroomvroom wrote:
| Wow. That's a huge difference.
|
| I purchased a Chinese brand scooter from a US-based
| dealer.
|
| Their customer service was awful. They had a phone number
| that changed often and didn't work, and lied about their
| intent to honor warranty claims. It was broken for 4
| months. In the end, they decided to cancel my warranty
| and refuse any further assistance because I dared to ask
| for a functional product.
|
| I suggest no one ever buy a Kaabo scooter from any of the
| 3 major dealers in the US.
|
| Kaabo itself is even worse providing no support to
| customers at all.
| jb1991 wrote:
| reverse the credit card charge, that usually works like a
| charm and weakens the company you bought it from, and
| enough do the same, they can't do business any more
| cvccvroomvroom wrote:
| That doesn't work in the US. Too much time elapsed and
| it's not something a credit card company would
| adjudicate. My one little encounter isn't something a
| credit card company would care about.
|
| It could be a small claims court matter if they were in
| the same state.
|
| It's cheaper to write-off the matter as a learning
| experience.
|
| Voro Motors. They're a fly-by-night operation like the
| other Kaabo dealers I found in the US. Ship from China
| and expect no support or warranty.
|
| Also, no e-scooter shops will touch Kaabos because
| they're not designed for repair and parts are difficult
| to source. The wiring inside looks like spaghetti with
| random colors that don't match their wiring diagram and
| wires that go nowhere. In addition, the early model forks
| would break spontaneously due to manufacturing defects
| that lead to a number of grotesque injuries and perhaps a
| death or two.
|
| PS: BBB is itself a widely-held misconception and fraud,
| perhaps the inverse of Yelp. It's mostly a feel good
| badge businesses pay for. Any business can join it and
| they have little incentive to police their "members"
| because, like binding arbitration, the "members" are the
| customers, not retailer's customers.
| jb1991 wrote:
| I have never had a credit card dispute my challenge to
| reverse a charge (including in the U.S.). You are the
| credit card's more important customer, not the business.
| If you follow their steps, they will reverse the charge.
| It's not a lot of effort and bad business do go out of
| business when enough customers reverse the charges
| because then the business can't use credit cards any
| more.
| gggggg5 wrote:
| > That doesn't work in the US.
|
| Totally does.
| gggggg5 wrote:
| I get the legal differences, but in practice EU-like
| return policies are extremely common in the US. Are there
| really significant cultural differences with regards to
| returns?
| Elkekec wrote:
| 14 days minimum is only for online shopping, this is not
| true if you buy products in physical store(in EU).
| jb1991 wrote:
| You are correct:
|
| > If you bought a product or a service online or outside
| of a shop (by telephone, mail order, from a door-to-door
| salesperson), you also have the right to cancel and
| return your order within 14 days, _for any reason and
| without a justification_.
|
| https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/shopping/
| gua...
|
| I guess it's one more reason to always buy online!
| sschueller wrote:
| * if unopened and unused.
| jb1991 wrote:
| Is your asterisk intended for the EU or the US?
|
| in the EU, you can return things after using them, no
| problem
| [deleted]
| tremon wrote:
| Depends on the goods. Not many places will accept returns
| for opened/used underwear, for example. Same with digital
| goods (dvd/cd/games), if the seal is broken the shop will
| not accept a return.
| jb1991 wrote:
| True, there are some obvious exceptions. But suppose I
| buy a vacuum cleaner and use it for a month and don't
| like it, doesn't matter how much I used it, I can return
| it in the EU.
| eps wrote:
| Not that I don't believe you, but do you have a source
| for that?
| jb1991 wrote:
| My own life experience in the EU is my source.
| eps wrote:
| Yeah, I assumed as much that's why I asked.
|
| Your top comment implied that it's a norm in the EU. It
| is not. It's very much retailer-specific.
| tremon wrote:
| Here are the B2C rules for e-commerce in the EU, which
| are supposed to be the norm:
| https://europa.eu/youreurope/business/selling-in-
| eu/selling-... . Anything beyond that is retailer-
| specific. Note that this concerns all forms of remote
| selling, i.e. phone sales, webshops goods, but even door-
| to-door vending -- basically anything that does not
| involve the customer setting foot in your brick-and-
| mortar store.
|
| > When can your customer withdraw from the contract?
|
| If you have given all the necessary information about the
| right to withdraw, your customer has 14 days to withdraw
| from the contract - without any penalty and without
| having to give any reason: For goods -
| this means 14 days after delivery For services -
| this means 14 days after the contract was concluded
|
| > What are your obligations after the consumer withdraws
| from the contract?
|
| You must reimburse the money received from your customer
| (or cancel their payment) within 14 days of being
| notified they are withdrawing.
|
| You may withhold this reimbursement until you have
| received the goods back from the customer, or at least
| received evidence they have actually sent them.
|
| > Who pays what?
|
| The Customer pays the cost of returning the goods (unless
| you failed to inform them of this in advance -- in which
| case you will be liable for these costs).
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| The law doesn't seem to cover that, or one pretty large
| retailer in France is ostensibly not abiding by it.
|
| Darty.com says that you can only return an item if it can
| be resold as new. Basically, you may only open it to
| inspect it. If there are signs of use, you won't get the
| full refund.
|
| Other retailers, like Amazon, may not care about this and
| refund fully no questions asked. But in my experience,
| Amazon is pretty unique in doing this.
| jb1991 wrote:
| If you are in Europe and you buy it online, then the
| retailer is obligated by law to accept the return.
|
| https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/shopping/
| gua...
|
| >If you bought a product or a service online or outside
| of a shop (by telephone, mail order, from a door-to-door
| salesperson), you also have the right to cancel and
| return your order within 14 days, _for any reason and
| without a justification_.
|
| In my experience, all retailers (have not tried in
| France, though) follow this law.
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| I think the issue turns around the "any reason" part. It
| doesn't say anything about the condition of the item,
| which, in my opinion, is the crux of the issue.
|
| Unfortunately, I only have French references. The actual
| French law is at [0]. It says that the buyer is on the
| hook for any depreciation resulting from handling, apart
| from what is necessary to determine the characteristics
| and good working condition of the goods. So opening the
| vacuum box to see that it's not missing a part or
| something is fine. Vacuuming your house for 2 weeks is
| probably not. "Determine the characteristics" is
| ambiguous to me, so it's not clear where the line is.
|
| For example, Zalando, an online clothes retailer, will
| accept returns for garments that have been "tried on" but
| not "worn" [1].
|
| LDLC, an online electronics retailer, will accept returns
| for items in "original condition and packaging". I expect
| that if I buy a mouse, use it for a week and there are
| marks on the pads, they won't accept the return. [2]
|
| [0] https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/codes/article_lc/LEGIA
| RTI0000...
|
| [1] https://www.zalando.fr/aide/Retour-and-
| Remboursement/Conditi...
|
| [2] https://www.ldlc.com/aide/234-politique-de-reprise/
| stabbles wrote:
| The largest shareholder in Digitec Galaxus AG is Migros [1],
| which is a cooperative federation with more than 2 million
| members.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Migros
| jibcage wrote:
| It thrills me to pieces seeing Migros and Galaxus on here. I
| wish there was something remotely similar to Migros in the US.
| Zi2JDrgLmx6J2t wrote:
| Terrible white-label groceries? Don't you guys have Trader
| Joe's for this purpose?
| archon810 wrote:
| Confused by this comment. Trader Joe's is universally loved
| for its products, including groceries.
| steffenkame wrote:
| I this a great step for environment protection.
| TomGullen wrote:
| New attack vector for black hat product manufacturers to abuse
| and compete on, hopefully it won't devolve into this level of
| competition though!
| lolc wrote:
| Isn't that a metric you want manufacturers to compete on? How
| could they fake this?
| sys42590 wrote:
| I really like this step... especially because they sell a mix of
| "good" brands and stuff you could get on Aliexpress for a tenth
| of the price.
|
| One more observation:
|
| If you look at the smartphone scores, you'll see that Apple
| warranty rates are WAY below other brands. I assume the reason
| for this is that for Apple you don't have to go through the
| retailer you bought it to have it fixed under warranty. For
| Samsung et al. there's little option to have your phone or tablet
| fixed without reaching out to the place you bought it.
| Tijdreiziger wrote:
| Samsung has service centers too.
|
| I don't know the situation in Switzerland, but in the EU, the
| manufacturer warranty (whether from Apple or Samsung) is
| usually only 1 year. EU consumer law mandates a 2-year minimum
| warranty, so after the first year, you have to go through the
| store.
| Lukas_Skywalker wrote:
| In Switzerland, the retailer must provide a two year
| warranty. The retailers can not shorten that span, but
| (strangely) can remove it entirely. The customer needs to
| know this before buying though.
|
| The manufacturers warranty is up to them and is not
| mandatory.
| sys42590 wrote:
| 2 years ago, I went to an Samsung authorized third party
| repair shop to to have a cracked screen replaced. They told
| me it will take 5 weeks to have my phone repaired.
|
| I then went to an unauthorized repair shop and they replaced
| my cracked screen with an unauthorized replacement part that
| only had 2 finger multi-touch (without telling me of course).
|
| I don't personally own Apple devices, but from people close
| to me I know first hand that Apple's service is usually
| better than my experience two years ago.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| >> For Samsung et al. there's little option to have your phone
| or tablet fixed without reaching out to the place you bought
| it.
|
| I've had my personal phones repaired a handful of times in
| recent years (screens). All Samsung. I have never even
| considered taking them back to the place I bought them. I have
| always gone to whatever repair shop is local.
| sys42590 wrote:
| For free under warranty?
| chronogram wrote:
| I've not heard of phone screens breaking as a hardware
| defect. You'd have to get accident insurance for drops.
| sschueller wrote:
| I believe the amount of apple devices sold in comparison to
| other devices is very low as Apple has stores selling directly
| to customers. Also you can probably get your apple device
| repaired at the Apple store even if you purchased it at
| digitec/galaxus. That may heavily skew the numbers.
| layer8 wrote:
| Apple stores aren't that widespread in Europe, and you can
| usually buy Apple devices around 10% (or more) cheaper
| elsewhere.
| sys42590 wrote:
| That's what I'm saying, for Apple it's much easier to contact
| Apple directly (or any authorized repair shop) to have your
| device repaired or replaced. It may be possible for other
| Brands but their network is much smaller, so you usually end
| up going to the shop you bought it.
| jmole wrote:
| This may be specific to the US, but Apple still sells a
| majority of devices through carriers:
| https://www.theverge.com/2022/12/12/23505822/apple-iphone-
| sa...
| fomine3 wrote:
| So direct repair service network works well to make the rate
| lower. It looks good incentive for all. Shop don't need support
| cost, customer get better service, manufacturer make products
| looks reliable.
| crazygringo wrote:
| Seems like this isn't per-product, but rather per-brand in a
| particular category.
|
| So while it seems like a big step forwards (great!), it's still
| not going to tell you if a _particular_ item from a brand is a
| big lemon. And in my experience, that 's often what happens when
| a well-known brand starts putting out a few "budget" items.
| (Happened to me recently on a blender that burned out on first
| use, and going back to search the user reviews, it seems to be a
| notorious problem for that specific model of blender, but not the
| brand overall.)
|
| Would be amazing if Amazon could display per-product stats on
| returns, at least for items with >10,000 total sales.
|
| (In contrast, warranties usually/always seem to be handled
| directly through the manufacturer in the US at least, so Amazon
| wouldn't even have that data.)
| senthil_rajasek wrote:
| Are the data used to generate this score and rate publicly
| available ?
|
| How does one verify they are true and not just another marketing
| trick.
| Kenji wrote:
| [dead]
| mavu wrote:
| That is one of the cases where someone does something and you ask
| yourself: Why has this not happened since forever and is absolute
| standard everywhere?
| petodo wrote:
| Is this really worth article? Czech online shops publish
| reliability of products for years.
|
| 2nd biggest shows reliability, for instance iphone 12 has 99%
|
| https://www.czc.cz/apple-iphone-12-128gb-green/301129/produk...
|
| the biggest shop does inverse how many (1%) used warranty
|
| https://m.alza.cz/iphone-12-64gb-cerna-d6216436.htm
|
| this is worth checking before buying something because 97%
| reliability is for instance extremely bad compared to 99%, you
| are 3 times more likely to get faulty piece
|
| there is also monopolistic price comparison website heureka.cz
| where you can check price history years back, compare all shops
| and set price tracking with notification covering pretty much all
| online shops
| david927 wrote:
| Wait... are you saying Jara Cimrman did it first?!
| petodo wrote:
| well he was born in Vienna, so not sure that would count
| pifm_guy wrote:
| When I buy from AliExpress I feel like perhaps only 80% of
| items work properly for a reasonable lifespan...
|
| I still buy there because I quite like the challenge of
| repairing the things that don't work, and prices there are
| typically half of what things cost on Amazon.
| martyvis wrote:
| Yes, I am have never heard of stores doing this. Please add
| comments of more places where this is done. (I'm from Australia
| - you only see similar things from consumer groups)
| roesel wrote:
| This might be true, but both czc and alza have much to learn
| from digitec/galaxus regarding their website
| useability/cleanliness/etc. Alza nowadays is closer to
| Aliexpress than anything else with their endless dark
| patterns/spam/clutter.
|
| I wish we had something like Digitec/Galaxus in Czechia.
| Mironet is probably the closest, but their product range is
| limited and they're still not quite there.
| petodo wrote:
| honestly i don't care about website design at all, I just go
| to heureka, find which shop had lowest price with shipping
| and is well established and then just click buy after
| redirecting, can't imagine looking for something directly on
| particular website and be loyal to some shop and not to my
| wallet, only reason I'm willing to pay slightly more for
| Softcom or Datart is they are next to my home so no need
| shipping and can use easy return/RMA, but if price difference
| is more than cost of return shipping, them I just choose
| cheapest (non shady) option (and for the record I almost
| never buy from CZC and especially Alza, which is like the
| most expensive shop among the big ones)
| roesel wrote:
| Heureka/Toppreise/... is nice if you know which model you
| want exactly and you are looking for the lowest price with
| shipping. But if you're for example searching for a new
| laptop or dishwasher, having a website with a clean
| interface, fast response times, good filters, and
| consistent item classification/description is priceless.
| And that is exactly what galaxus/digitec is.
|
| (It doesn't hurt that they also very often have close to
| the lowest price in Switzerland, or only a few CHF more
| than the absolute lowest, which often made it worth it for
| me just to have "most of my orders in one place" and know
| that I will have a good RMA experience if it comes to
| that.)
| raphaelj wrote:
| Never heard about Galaxus, but looking at their e-shop, I felt
| like being propelled 10y in the future.
|
| Their UI is so much ahead any e-commerce website I ever seen.
| Gigachad wrote:
| Also surprised. The site is very refreshing and unique while
| staying very functional.
| mirabel-stephen wrote:
| [dead]
| r2b2 wrote:
| I'd love to see re-purchase delay[0] and re-purchase rate[1] as
| well. Useful looking at multiple highly rated products and
| products that you go through more quickly (Eg. many bathroom
| supplies).
|
| --
|
| [0] Time between a customer's purchase and re-purchase of a
| product.
|
| [1] Percent of original buyers that buy again.
| RajuVarghese wrote:
| This post in HN has made my day! I have been a Digitec customer
| for over 15 years and I still buy all my tech items from them. Or
| from Galaxus if it is a non-tech. I am thrilled to see this
| "little Swiss" company getting wider exposure. I am glad to say
| that my overall experience with them has been 5-star. I remember
| I bought computer components from them in the early days as that
| was the cheapest way to get a custom computer built with the best
| parts. There were other sites but Digitec stood out when it came
| to dependability. Hat's off to you, Digitec/Galaxus!!
| saiya-jin wrote:
| For many items, they have much bigger stock than anybody else.
| Ie kids stuff and toys etc. You open similar category on web,
| and there is 10,000 products when any competition has 200.
| Often if I look for something a bit non-mainstream, they are
| the only one in CH who has it, at reasonable prices.
| config_yml wrote:
| I also bought my first PC with them in 2001. Back then their
| site was just for ordering custom pc's. I spent hours on their
| site building the perfect custom setup. Then went to pick it up
| at their "warehouse" which was just a room with racks full of
| pc components and the guys sitting on the floor building the
| machines haha.
| Hamuko wrote:
| Finnish retailer Verkkokauppa.com has had something similar for a
| couple of years now. If I for example look up the 64 GB Apple
| iPad (Wi-Fi), I can see that it has 0.43% repairs and 0.17%
| returns, and that the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip3 has 0% returns and
| 2.17% repairs.
| mordae wrote:
| Same here in Czechia for the major shops.
| jerzyt wrote:
| This is really a great way to sabotage your competitor. Have a
| bunch of friend and family buy a product and flood Galaxus with
| bogus returns and warranty claims. We'll see how it works.
| RektBoy wrote:
| Reminds me of Galactus, all-knowing user service provider
| aggregator. Hehe
| hackerman_fi wrote:
| "I'm not aware of any other online retailer in the world that
| discloses this data"
|
| Let me help you with that. Finland's largest online retailer has
| had it for years, example:
| https://www.verkkokauppa.com/fi/product/645007/Sony-WH-1000X...
| neop1x wrote:
| Alza (a czech retailer also available in Germany) has had it
| for many years as well but none of them appear to provide a
| comparison between brands in a category as Galaxus does.
|
| https://m.alza.de/asus-rt-ax53u-d6669501.htm
| jasmer wrote:
| Retail has long needed a shake up in the face of Amazon.
| sfc32 wrote:
| I live in Switzerland and shop a lot from Galaxus. This new
| initiative is very welcome and innovative, I hope other retailers
| follow and especially manufacturers stop shopping products that
| end up in landfill.
|
| Galaxus is great in terms of range and delivery time. They have
| local stores in city centers where you can pick up items to get
| them even quicker and avoid the packaging associated with
| shipping.
|
| However, their return policy is terrible. If you return something
| with an opened box, there is a 10% return tax.
| https://www.galaxus.ch/en/wiki/560
| ThreeFx wrote:
| Why is that terrible?
|
| Presumably it is much harder to sell now. If you didn't want
| it, why buy it in the first place?
| ulimn wrote:
| Also, I think in case of a lot of stuff it's hard to tell if
| you also used it once or twice (e.g. small electronics which
| can be easily re-packaged).
| tr33house wrote:
| imagine if this was on Amazon! I really hope this catches on!
| Pxtl wrote:
| Does it matter? Any shoddy goods on Amazon are immediately
| pulled from the store, re-stickered, and then reintroduced
| under a new brand name, possibly recycling the listing of a
| popular and successful product using the shit-of-Theseus trick.
| crazygringo wrote:
| Sure, for no-name brands.
|
| But people also buy _tons_ of brand-name stuff on Amazon,
| where this can 't happen. I _absolutely_ want to know the
| return rate for name-brand stuff.
| XCSme wrote:
| Meanwhile, on Amazon I ordered something with "same-day
| delivery", and it hasn't even been shipped 5 days later by the
| seller. There is no way to leave a review, because by their
| policy if there were shipment issues, you can't leave a review
| for the product (I tried once, when I paid for a shelf that I
| really needed, and it took 2 weeks before the order was marked
| as cancelled, I left a review that I never received the
| product, it was deleted).
| Pxtl wrote:
| AFAIK you can complain about delivery stuff under seller
| feedback, just not under product reviews.
| XCSme wrote:
| But that is private feedback, right? There is not even a
| rating for sellers, as on eBay, so buying from a 3rd party
| seller feels as risky as buying it from a random website.
| This doesn't even go to Amazon I think, it goes directly to
| the seller.
|
| EDIT: I stand corrected, you can leave public feedback on
| the seller's page (it's a bit hard to get there, you have
| to go through the sold product). That being said, refunding
| the non-delivered item doesn't seem to be possible without
| contacting support.
| ndsipa_pomu wrote:
| That looks to be a great idea to me to replace faked user reviews
| on well known shopping sites. I expect it could be games though
| turtlebits wrote:
| Indeed. Sounds good in principle, but how do you prevent
| someone from repeatedly returning items just to hurt a
| competitor and/or making frivolous defect/warranty claims
| against them?
| minsc_and_boo wrote:
| There are hidden reputation and anti-fraud mechanisms at play
| in a lot of consumer areas (incentives, reviews, etc.), it
| would be trivial to apply them to this too.
|
| Most fraudulent activity isn't attacking competitors, as it's
| prohibitively expensive, but instead propping up their own
| reputation. i.e. Amazon's fake reviews are mostly five-stars.
| truetraveller wrote:
| >prohibitively expensive
|
| Very inexpensive. Especially when expensive products are
| involved + few competitors. The ROI is massively good.
| minsc_and_boo wrote:
| For one or two attacks, sure, but at the scales to having
| impact we're talking prohibitively expensive, especially
| with antifraud detection whacking the moles.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _how do you prevent someone from repeatedly returning items
| just to hurt a competitor and /or making frivolous
| defect/warranty claims against them?_
|
| Seems like a subset of the fake-review problem. Except with
| money exchanged, tangible costs to the retailer and more
| documentation.
| ThePhysicist wrote:
| Faking a product defect is probably way harder than just
| submitting a fake review. Eventually the retailer will notice
| that something is off as you have to send the product back
| and it has to be defective. How do you create a plausible
| warranty defect in a TV, for example?
| truetraveller wrote:
| Just break it? I mean the guy is already scamming, go all
| out.
| _trampeltier wrote:
| And if it's not warranty, you have to pay it yourself. And
| you still have to buy the product in the first place.
| _trampeltier wrote:
| Just maybe a product for boring people looks better, because
| they are a bit more careful than a kind of same product for
| teens. But still, I like idea, finally we have something from
| "big data".
| Spooky23 wrote:
| When I worked retail sales you definitely saw different return
| rates on different SKUs. I tried to collect data for a college
| project but the sample size was too small. (My class was in the
| spring, and sales boomed in the fall)
|
| I was always surprised that the company didn't do that, as they
| definitely lost alot of money to shrink and exceptions for high
| fail devices. At one point the company self-funded warranties, so
| a lemon had to kill profitability.
| jjcm wrote:
| I think this is great, and it serves both the interests of
| galaxus and the user. The user will pick things that have less
| returns, and in the process galaxus will (hopefully) have to
| field less returns as well.
| glanzwulf wrote:
| That's a great policy. I've used them a couple of times recently
| and was very impressed, now I might just use them even more.
| bbojan wrote:
| Product categorization on Galaxus is the best I've seen so far.
| Light years ahead compared to e.g. Amazon.
| andreicap wrote:
| One feature of Galaxus that I love and didn't see anywhere else
| is that you can sell back on the marketplace the stuff you bought
| on Galaxus once you don't need it anymore. Tt facilitates the
| payment and communication in a very straightforward manner.
| matsemann wrote:
| I actually don't care that much about these numbers, as they are
| not my problem. 5 year warranty by law (no matter what the maker
| gives you), makes it their risk if they make brittle products.
| Compared to in a market with little consumer protection laws
| (US), where what you buy is a uninformed gamble as to how it will
| last.
| luckylion wrote:
| You don't want faulty equipment. Not because you won't get a
| replacement, but because you'll have faulty equipment and will
| have to spend time dealing with it.
| zwaps wrote:
| If you now add a "made in X" indicator, I guess I will order in
| Switzerland from now on
| ensignavenger wrote:
| I wonder if the warranty information is correct? From some of the
| comments, it sounds like they do warranty service in-house for
| some items at least? I wonder if Apple really has that much lower
| % of warranty issues, or if Apple owners tend to get warranty
| service direct from Apple instead of going through Galaxus, and
| so they don't have the data on Apple products?
| iwangulenko wrote:
| Happy to see a Swiss online retailer on HN, where the audience is
| more US focused.
|
| Amazon has little traction in Switzerland still.
|
| Swiss people like to support local businesses, hurray!
| bauruine wrote:
| The Amazon website is just pure and utter garbage. I seriously
| don't know why anyone can buy anything there. They would have
| to sell everything at least at halve the price for me even
| considering using them instead of Digitec. Amazon has little
| traction because Switzerland is small so they don't care, not
| as price sensitive as others and hence people don't like to
| torment themselves just to save a few bucks.
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