Switzerland

Switzerland is the new number one on the B2C E-commerce Index of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. It surpasses the Netherlands, which ended first in the previous two editions.

ProfiCircle, a B2b marketplace from Romania that sells commercial equipment like pallet racks and industrial mezzanines, is expanding. The startup will launch its marketplace in Germany and Switzerland next month.

Conrad Electronic has made the decision to let the leases of its two branches in Switzerland expire in 2021. This means the consumer electronics retailer will close its physical stores. But Conrad won't be leaving Switzerland completely: it now focuses on ecommerce and b2b.

Zalando has announced it acquired Fision, a Swiss company that offers a mobile body scanning solution. For Zalando, the acquisition is part of its investment in the customer experience.

Online optician Mister Spex now offers an online eye test, since the coronavirus has made it impossible in many European countries to visit an optician. It says it's the first optician to offer customers in Germany, Austria and Switzerland the possibility of an individual eye test via an online application.

Ecommerce in Switzerland was worth 9.77 billion euros last year, which means it passed the 10 billion Swiss francs mark for the first time. The Swiss online retail industry increased by 8.4 compared to the situation one year before.

The Coop Group generated sales of 28.9 billion euros in 2019, with ecommerce sales increasing by 16.3 percent. The profit of the Swiss retail and wholesale company amounted to almost 500 million euros.

The amount of online marketplaces in Germany, Austria and Switzerland has increased significantly in the past five years. In 2015, there were only 81 online marketplaces, but nowadays there's 173 of them.

Digitec Galaxus has generated over 1 billion francs in sales through its online shops. The exact amount was 1.146 billion francs, which corresponds to 1.06 billion euros. This is an increase of 16 percent compared to the situation one year before.

Zalando will launch its beauty category in Switzerland on the 11th of December, giving its Swiss customers the opportunity to complete their outfits with matching cosmetics. The introduction of its beauty category in Switzerland follows after launches in several other European markets, including the Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark.

Microspot has changed its image. The Swiss online retail company is now officially presenting itself as a non-food online shopping center. The logo, colors and design have been changed to give the website the look of a shopping center instead of a consumer electronics retailer.

Fashion and lifestyle retailer Breuninger is expanding again. After opening an online store in Austria two years ago, the German company has now launched an online shop in Switzerland.

Zalando is testing same-evening delivery in Switzerland. The new service enables selected customers to receive their orders the same evening. Zalando is running the test with Swiss Post and Notime.

There is another online department store arising in Switzerland. Two months after electronics retailer Brack.ch relaunched as an online department store, competitor Microspot will also switch to being an online platform where customers can shop for things like jewelry, diapers, sports equipment and dog food.

Swiss retailer Brack.ch, which totally relaunched its online shop two months ago, has entered the market of drugstore articles. Customers can now order health products, natural cosmetics and other drugstore products at the Swiss ecommerce platform.