Our online shop: from purchase to your letterbox
14.5.2020
Translation: Eva Francis
Pictures: Thomas Kunz
Our customers place several thousands of orders in our online shops every day. Let’s take a look at how we add products to our range, why we don’t keep all of them in stock in our own warehouses and how your order arrives in your letterbox.
The largest online department store in Switzerland, we offer our customers a wide range of products – from shoehorns to Wifi routers and lawnmowers. We’d like to walk you through the stages of online shopping, from the moment when we purchase a product to the moment it arrives at your doorstep.
Our product range
Our range currently includes several million products. Teams, organised by product categories, create and manage the diverse range. There’s team «Mobiles», team «Interior» and team «Baby and Toys», for instance. We’ve been working with many suppliers and manufacturers for years. At the same time, we’re constantly on the hunt for new partners, hip new products or exotic specialities. Looking for ear candles? Fancy a marble run for adults? How about a chocolate fountain? We have pretty much everything.
Many of these products are stored in our own warehouse. All products we have in stock are marked with a green dot and a white tick. Order one of these products and it will usually be delivered to you within one working day. Other products are stored at distributors or directly with the manufacturer, sometimes abroad, which means it might take longer until an order arrives. In any case, we start processing your order as soon as you place it.
We also operate a marketplace. This means we offer merchants the chance to sell their products via Galaxus for a commission fee. In return, we showcase merchants' products and offer them our customer service. Marketplace products are listed in the product details under «Supplied by». Some products are supplied by two or more merchants.
Purchasing
Some products are ordered by the hundreds every day. Nappies, hair cutters or printer cartridges are currently very popular. Some products, however, are often only sold in small quantities or not at all.
To avoid products staying in our warehouse for too long, we try to predict when and how often products will be ordered. We’ve developed mathematical models that take into account dozens of factors such as seasonality, numbers of views in our shops or how many customers have added a product to their watch list.
In eight out of ten cases, the procurement process is automatic and doesn’t require any manual intervention. This works well for our existing range, as we can draw on experience. Our buyers take over for products that are new to our range – let’s say a new iPhone or a new Nintendo console is launched.
Our warehouse
We make sure popular products are in stock in our own warehouse, so we can guarantee a fast delivery. We also stock up on new products in order to expand the range, keep it up to date and interesting for customers.If a product isn't in stock in our warehouse, we rely on our suppliers to indicate delivery times. We do our best to make sure this information is accurate, but have no direct influence.
Our warehouse currently covers a surface of over 50,000 square metres – that’s about eight football pitches. We’re opening a new warehouse in Wohlen soon – and an entire new logistics centre in Utzensdorf is in the planning stage. This expansion is necessary to keep up with the growing order volume: in recent years, our sales have grown by an average of 15 to 20 percent.
Delivering
Swiss Post is our main partner for deliveries of products from our warehouse. Large areas on our warehouse premises are reserved for Swiss Post employees. From the outgoing goods area, the parcels are taken to the nearest Swiss Post distribution centre in lorries. From there, they are delivered to your door or letterbox. Orders that aren't available from our warehouse are sent directly to you by the supplier whenever possible, as we don't want to extend the delivery time unnecessarily.
Tips for shopping with us
Watch list: Creating a personal watch list helps you keep an overview of products you’re interested in. To add a product to your watchlist, click the pin symbol on the product detail page. If a product isn’t available at the moment, add it to the watch list and we'll let you know when it’s available again.
Partial delivery: If you order several products in one go, but would like us to send them to you one by one if they’re not all available at the same time, select «Activate partial delivery» on your order overview.
Nathan Munzinger
Head of Product
Nathan.Munzinger@digitecgalaxus.ch
5 comments
later