Migros
Migros (
IPA: /ˈmiɡro/) is one of Switzerland's largest enterprises and certainly its largest supermarket chain. The name comes from the
French "mi" for half or mid-way and "gros," which means wholesale. Thus the word connotes prices that are halfway between retail and wholesale.
The
logo of the company is a large orange M, which some Swiss call "the orange giant". The firm's
loyalty card is the M-cumulus card (a play on the word accumulate and a type of cloud formation).
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The front of a Migros store in Metalli, Zug, Switzerland |
Migros was founded in
1925 in Zurich as a private enterprise by
Gottlieb Duttweiler, who had the idea of selling just six basic foodstuffs at low prices to householders who, in those days, did not have ready access to markets of any kind. At first he peddled only coffee, rice, sugar, noodles, coconut oil and soap from trucks that went from one village or hamlet to another. Later, of course, he and his drivers expanded their inventory and in
1926 Duttweiler built his first market, also in Zurich. His second store, in Ticino, presaged the future because it was founded as a cooperative. By
1941 the energetic entrepreneur had built a number of markets but in that year he basically gave the business to his customers by transforming everything from his privately owned enterprises into regional cooperatives, headed by the Federation of Migros Cooperatives (FCM).
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A Swiss chocolate aisle in a branch of Migros in Interlaken. You can just see the M-Budget chocolate on the bottom shelf. |
As early as
1935, Duttweiler showed his zest for expansion by founding the Hotelplan travel agency. Later the Migros brand was applied to a weekly magazine, "Wir Brückenbauer" in
1942. Other ventures were restaurants in
1952, gasoline stations (Migrol) in
1954, language schools (Eurocentres) in
1956, a bank (Migros Bank, Banque Migros) in
1957 and an insurance company,
1959. It opened its first foreign supermarket in the frontier region of France, at Thoiry, in
1993, and its first recreation park, Säntispark, at Abtwil in St.-Gallen, in 1986.
To this day, Migros keeps the
cooperative society as its form of organization. Nowadays, a large part of the Swiss population are members of the Migros cooperative - around 2 million of Switzerland's total population of 7,2 million
[Article by Thomas Hammer in German newspaper Die Zeit (in German)] [Article by Constantin Seibt in Swiss newspaper WOZ (in German)], thus making Migros a supermarket chain that is owned by its customers.
Reflecting the altruism of its founder, Migros operates a number of evening schools for working adults, featuring classes in cooking, languages and other subjects. It has obligated itself to spend one percent of its annual turnover for financing cultural projects in a broad sense; the sub-organization taking care of this is called
Migros Kulturprozent[Official site of Migros Kulturprozent (in German, French, and Italian)] ("cultural percent"). An example of the Kulturprozent's activity is its own
record label Musiques Suisses often featuring little-known works from Swiss music history.
The supermarkets are categorized in the three size classes of M, MM and MMM, similar to
Migros Türk in
Turkey (sold to a Turkish group in 1975).
Migros acquired some notoriety in
1977 when it fired its severest internal critic,
Hans A. Pestalozzi.
M-Budget and Migros Sélection
In 1996, influenced by the budget ranges in other supermarket chains around Europe like
Tesco's Value and a business trip to
Australia, Migros made their budget range called
M-Budget with 70 products aimed at those with low incomes and large families. Now it has grown to 330 products including
mountain bikes,
snowboards,
mp3 players,
milk chocolate and
jeans.
To promote the range, in the early
noughties, Migros developed M-Budget Party with tickets costing CHF 9,90 including free non-alcoholic drinks (
cola,
lemonade and
orange juice) and snacks (
crisps,
chocolate and
cakes).
In 2005, together with Swisscom, Migros lauched M-Budget Mobile, a
pay-as-you-go mobile phone company.
In April 2006, Migros announced the M-Budget
credit card together with Fédération des coopératives Migros (FCM), MigrosBank and
MasterCard, originally with an annual rate of
CHF 4,40 - low compared to credit card annual rates of CHF 100 for a MigrosBank MasterCard Argent credit card. The card will be ready by
autumn 2006. After
Coop, the biggest competitor of Migros, announced a credit card without any annual rate, Migros too will offer its credit card for free. Migros later announced the full details of the credit card, it will have an
APR of 9,9%, the ability to gain cumulus points (1 point per 2 francs) and
GE Money Bank (Switzerland) is to be one of the partners of the credit card.
In 2005, they introduced a premium line called
Migros Sélection.
Migros does not sell alcoholic beverages nor cigarettes, except at LeShop.ch, and does not sell racy magazines.
Swiss Migros:
*
Migros –
supermarkets
*
LeShop.ch – an online supermarket (cooperation started in
2004 - 80% of shares bought in
2006) [
1]
*
Migrol –
petrol stations
*
M-electronics–
electronic stores and internet music download service
*
OBI –
Do it yourself stores
*
FitnessPark –
fitness centres
*
Do it+Garden Migros –
Do it yourself stores and
garden centres
*
Micasa –
furniture stores
*
MigrosBank –
bank (it is the fifth-largest in Switzerland)
*
Golfpark – public
golf courses
*
Ex Libris –
bookshops
*
Migros Klubschule –
adult education centres
*
SportXX –
sports shops
*
Eurocentres –
language schools
*
Frey –
chocolate manufactures
*
Migros Magazin – the company's sales magazine
*
Hotelplan – holidays company
*
Florissimail – postal flower service
Globus Group (became part of Migros in
1997)
*
Interio –
furniture stores
*
Globus –
department stores
*
Globus Herren – menswear stores
*
Office World – office supplies (not the British Office Worlds, owned by
Staples)
*
Globi – a cartoon character who is mascot of the Globus Group, often refers as Switzerland's
Mickey Mouse.
The main competitor is
Coop, Switzerland's second-largest supermarket chain, a
cooperative like Migros, but with a more centralized organization.
[Article "Coop (Schweiz)" in German Wikipedia] Amongst the smaller competitors are
Denner Discount, the
Manor department store chain, and more recently
Carrefour and
Aldi. Although Carrefour and Aldi are very large international supermarket groups, they entered the Swiss market only recently (Aldi opened its first Swiss shops in 2005) and thus operate just a few branches at the present time. However, it is expected that especially Aldi will become one of the major competitors of both Migros and Coop, as it managed to set established supermarket chains in other countries under heavy pressure through an aggressive discount strategy. A further expected competitor is
Lidl which has announced to establish supermarkets in Switzerland shortly.
*
Migros Switzerland website, in German, French & Italian*
Migros Sélection website, in German, French & Italian
