Contact
Please direct individual enquiries about the history of Migros to the Historical Company Archives of the Federation of Migros Cooperatives.
Back to the timeline
Dumping instead of stacking
1 / 5
On Zürichstrasse in Lucerne (1949) 
Shelves that combine the dumping and stacking of the goods (ca. 1950) 
Roundhead shelf in an early Migros self-service shop (1949) 
Scaffale stondato con merce versata e scaffale di versamento nella filiale della Fellenbergstrasse di Zurigo (ca. 1955) 
Mirror and round display with dumped and stacked goods in the Bucheggstrasse branch in Zurich (circa 1950)
After switching to the self-service model in 1948, Migros analysed every work process to make it as efficient as possible. One new development was the «Schüttgestell», a system of arranging goods tilted in racks that made the time-consuming stacking of merchandise a thing of the past.
Converting the branches into self-service systems arises many questions and new demands. Migros employees responsible for fitting the shops gain inspiration from countless photos of self-service shops in other countries. Hence the ”roundhead shelves“ –displays that are rounded on the wide side – can be found in the Migros shops almost unchanged from those in English self-service shops. The same applies to the labelling of the product groups.
The ”main question” however, according to Migros, is whether the margins can be lowered because of the self-service system. If this is possible, then the ”rationalisation profit“ can be passed on to the customer and once again contribute to ”improving the living standards“ in Switzerland.
In order to achieve this high goal, all work procedures in the new system are carefully examined. The stocking of the shelves is targeted by the rationaliser as time consuming. The solution is simple and impressive: It is called ”dump shelves”, shelves in which the goods are not stacked, but are simply “dumped“ to save time.
But the dump shelves bring an unexpected surprise: Not only is the working time reduced, but the turnover of the same product is noticeably higher when it is presented ”dumped“ and not stacked. Migros concludes ”that the customer much prefers to take a tin or packet out of such a ”heap of goods” rather than to ”destroy“ an artistically built pyramid”.