Galaxus grew 13.1 per cent in 2023

Despite facing a thoroughly challenging market environment, Swiss online retailer Galaxus recorded double-digit growth in the fiscal year of 2023. Total sales across the Digitec and Galaxus platforms in Switzerland and Europe rose by CHF 317 million to CHF 2.744 billion. That’s an increase of 13.1 per cent compared to the previous year. Net proceeds from our deliveries and services increased by 11.6 per cent to 2.464 billion Swiss francs.

Expanded range – lower prices – new customers

In the past financial year, the electronics specialist Digitec and the online department store Galaxus expanded their product range in Switzerland by over 30 per cent. The range now encompasses 6.3 million products. Not only that, but prices have been reduced across a great deal of the range. There was also a considerable increase in the number of new customers, with the strongest growth observed in Switzerland’s French-speaking regions. In absolute terms, the densely populated cantons of Zurich and Bern were ahead, recording growth of more than 10 per cent. Meanwhile, customers based in Liechtenstein placed the highest number of orders per person per year.

Over 4 million people placed at least one Galaxus order in 2023, with 1 million of those stemming from Germany, Austria and the rest of Europe. In Switzerland, daily consumer products were in particularly high demand. The highest growth in percentage terms was recorded in the Supermarket and Beauty + Health sections, where sales were up more than 30 per cent on the previous year. In Germany and the European markets, Galaxus saw stark growth in all categories, achieving sales of 286 million euros – an increase of 55.4 per cent on the previous year. Mobile phones, consumer electronics and IT products were in particularly high demand in our international markets.

New services welcomed by customers

In a world-first, Galaxus began publicly revealing warranty scores and return rates. Available on both the Swiss and EU shop websites, the figures show how often customers return products, how frequently products break during their warranty period and how long it takes for a warranty claim to be settled. With that, Galaxus and Digitec became a reference work for the product and service quality of numerous brands. As a result, customers can tell whether the products they’re about to buy are of good quality or whether their would-be bargains are likely to give up the ghost prematurely.

With the launch of Digitec Galaxus’s new mobile plan in May, we said «cheerio» to digitec connect and «hello» to Galaxus Mobile. Providing more service for less money, both the Basic plan and the plan including unlimited data and calls were a hit with many new customers. In Switzerland, this was followed by the launch of the International plan in October – an option for those who frequently travel to the EU and USA.

Lightning-fast same-day delivery

In summer 2023, Galaxus rolled out flash delivery throughout Switzerland. Six out of ten Swiss households can now enjoy same-day delivery on their orders, with the feature launching in French-speaking Switzerland in October 2023. During Black Friday week, we got word of some incredible news: we’d received our hundred millionth order since the company’s foundation in 2001. The order in question? A pair of gloves.