“Our product range will soon double in size”

When was the last time you ordered something from Migros Online?
I use our online supermarket at least once a week and I placed my most recent order yesterday.

And what did you buy?
Ingredients for meals that my 12-year-old twin sons want to cook: one wants to make pasta with minced meat, the other tofu coated in a panko crumb. They both have home economics classes at school and currently really enjoy being in the kitchen.

As the head of Migros Online, do you still shop at regular supermarkets?
Yes, of course. I'm like the vast majority of our customers in this respect. Surveys have shown that almost nobody shops exclusively online. Nearly everyone also uses traditional shops in parallel. Although the Migros Online range is extensive, you still have the greater choice of non-food products at a conventional Migros. For example, I recently bought a pair of pyjamas at the branch on Limmatplatz.

Migros Online is currently building a new logistics centre in Regensdorf (Canton of Zurich). Will this facility allow you to expand your product range?
When this centre goes into operation some time after Easter 2026, we will be able to almost double our range in stages – from 12,000 to 20,000 products. Afterwards, we'll have a much larger range of kitchen utensils and toys, for example. Products will be prepared for transportation in four different temperature zones—from minus 20 degrees Celsius to room temperature—over an area the size of five football pitches. Some 400 people will work there.

Can this centre also shorten delivery times?
Yes, because our three existing warehouses are heavily utilised. This is why there are often no slots for next-day delivery. In future, orders should arrive by the following day. In the city of Zurich, they could even be delivered the same day in some cases.

Swiss Post will continue to be responsible for delivering the ordered products. Why don't you build up your own fleet of delivery vehicles?
Although no such fleet is currently planned, this is certainly something that we might think about in the future. Swiss Post has the advantage of having a highly efficient logistics system that allows it to deliver to even the remotest locations in Switzerland. I once ordered something from Migros Online at a campsite in Pontresina, and the products arrived on time. There are also ecological reasons in favour of Swiss Post, as it aims to use solely electric delivery vehicles by 2030.

Speaking of sustainability, how environmentally friendly is it to shop at the online supermarket?
Ordering online allows goods to be transported together with other orders, thus preventing customers from having to make individual journeys to the supermarket. We also do a great deal for the environment in other ways. For instance, the new logistics centre has a huge solar array which allows us to forego having to use external electricity altogether when the sun is shining. We don't need heating oil there either, because we reuse the waste heat generated by the cooling systems. Another factor is our reusable packaging, for example our newly developed cool boxes.

Migros Online is Switzerland's leading online supermarket. Will that still be the case in five years' time?
I'm certain of it. We may temporarily fall back to second place next year, but we'll be back on top as soon as the new logistics centre is fully operational. We have a number of major advantages, such as low-cost delivery subscriptions and the integration of Migros Online in the Migros app, which was voted the most popular Swiss app last year. Our product range is also unrivalled, featuring numerous Migros products, selected branded items and Denner wines.

E-commerce is considered a male-dominated industry. Is that ever an obstacle for you as CEO?
No. I don't find online retail to be rough-and-tumble either, but rather objective and solution-orientated. The priority is getting products from A to B. More women work in our industry nowadays, and each of them acts as a role model, whether consciously or unconsciously. For example, the head of IT at Migros Online is a woman. That's why more and more female computer engineers are now applying.

Looking back, we were on the verge of the first coronavirus lockdown when you became the head of Migros Online. How did your start go back then?
All of our delivery slots were hopelessly overbooked. It was like working in a pressure cooker. However, we withstood the pressure together and built a new warehouse in Pratteln from scratch in just three months. It was a crazy period of time, and I'm proud of the tremendous team effort that we put in back then.

And now looking ahead, how will we shop in the future?
We're seeing trends that will primarily affect delivery. However, they differ depending on where you are in the world. In Turkey and India, for example, delivery times are being increasingly shortened by armies of motorcycle couriers that bring goods to customers, sometimes in as little as half an hour. However, this service only works in countries where low wages are paid. Pick-up stations are currently booming in France: you drive to a collection point by car, where staff put your online order into the boot of your car. Migros Online's predecessor, LeShop.ch, also experimented with such pick-up stations. However, there was less demand for them in Switzerland.

Which future trend would be better suited to Switzerland?
In California, there is a strong focus on autonomous electric vehicles that deliver orders. Such solutions could also become established in certain regions of Switzerland. In Regensdorf, we recently spent three days testing two robot dogs that delivered goods to selected addresses. This worked well from a technical perspective, and our customers also enjoyed the experiment.