Anyone who has done a weekly shop in Germany, France, Italy or Austria and compared prices to Switzerland, knows how much more it costs on the Swiss side of the border. The cost difference is sometimes pinned on the higher take-home pay paid to Swiss supermarket workers. Right? Wrong. The website barometre des prix allows the public to easily compare the […]
Swiss government to take aim at high Swiss prices
20 Minuten. Switzerland’s Federal Council wants to introduce new measures to lower prices in Switzerland to curb cross-border shopping, something that it says hurts Swiss businesses. Minister for Economic Affairs, Johann Schneider-Ammann, said in an interview with the newspaper Schweiz am Wochenende that he’s working on a package of measures to tackle high retail prices in Switzerland. He thinks […]
A recent purchase shows how hard it is to trust product packaging
Volkswagen shocked the world when it was revealed it was cheating on emissions tests on a grand scale. Now some television makers may be gaming the energy efficiency ratings of some of their televisions, according to the Economist. In their efforts to compete and sell more, some brands decide to cut corners. Sometime transgressions are major, […]
Zurich has world’s most expensive coffee
A comparison of coffee prices in 75 cities around the world places four Swiss cities in the top five. At an average price of CHF 3.47, Zurich came out top, followed by Copenhagen (3.22), Basel (3.21), Bern (3.07) and Geneva (3.02) The best prices were in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paolo in Brazil, just […]
Ochsner Sport under the spotlight after false discount labelling claim
One of Ochsner Sport’s customers was surprised by what they found when they peeled off a discount price sticker. According to the consumer watchdog, Fédération romande des consommateurs (FRC), a customer who bought a headlamp from the Ochsner Sport store in Nyon in December 2015, discovered an old price label under the one showing the discounted […]
Switzerland’s discount heaven
Another day in Happy Valley…with warmer weather and budding trees suggesting that spring finally is on its way. So too is the tradition of doing some spring skiing, before the thoughts of the denizens of Happy Valley turn completely from schussing down the ski-hill, to boating across Lake Leman to buy various goods in France […]
Why Swiss farm produce is so expensive
Swiss farm produce is expensive. It is not uncommon to pay over CHF 100 (US$ 105) per kilogram for the best cuts of beef in Swiss supermarkets, a multiple of two to three times the price of many other countries. Similarly high prices exist for many other farm products in Switzerland. Why is this? Small […]
