Online shoppers in Switzerland are impatient. If delivery is delayed, one in three people get angry within two days. At the same time, sustainable delivery is at least as important as speed for most. These are the results of a representative survey done on behalf of Digitec Galaxus.
But speed isn’t everything. One in five shoppers are prepared to accept delivery by snail mail if it means protecting the environment. A third also said that speed of delivery and environmental friendliness were equally important. So environmentally friendly delivery is at least as important as speed for more than half of people living in Switzerland.
Punctuality is a Swiss virtue. It also applies to expectations when shopping online: if delivery is delayed by just one day, 94 out of 100 online shoppers still show understanding. However, after just two days of delay, one in three shoppers start to get angry. And if there’s a delay of three to six days, three quarters have no patience left. These are the results of a representative survey done by the GfK polling institute on behalf of Digitec Galaxus. The results also show that men, city dwellers, French-speaking Swiss and young people are the quickest to grow annoyed.
On the other hand, around four out of ten respondents said that, when shopping online, fast delivery was more important to them than their carbon footprint. Especially men value speediness – almost half of them place getting their new phone or coffee beans the next day above the environment. Looking at the respondents’ place of residence reveals city dwellers and French-speaking Swiss are the most impatient online shoppers. Weighted by age, people aged 30 to 49 want their orders as quickly as possible – even if it means more waste gas.
«The environment is at least as important to us as fast delivery,» says Michael Stolle, who’s in charge of logistics as COO at Digitec Galaxus. Not all products are sent directly from the Digitec Galaxus warehouse, but those that are get shipped with Swiss Post. If you order by the evening, you’ll usually find the parcel in your mailbox or on your doorstep the next working day. Swiss Post focuses on low-CO2 delivery and has a fleet of around 6,000 electric scooters powered by green electricity. Digitec Galaxus also offers same-day delivery in the city of Zurich. NoTime is a subsidiary of Swiss Post. Its couriers deliver orders to customers’ doorsteps with no additional cardboard packaging – and on CO2-neutral electric cargo bikes.
Digitec Galaxus uses packaging made of 95 per cent recycled cardboard. The online retailer reduces truck trips through open loading. And if possible, a single, large package is shipped instead of several smaller ones. «Thanks to three fully automated packing machines, we also custom-pack around 70 per cent of all orders without adding any filling material,» says Michael. «In addition, we’ve defined energy and climate protection targets that are in line with the Paris Climate Agreement.» For example, by 2030, Digitec Galaxus wants to have reduced packaging-related CO2 emissions per shipment by 1.2 per cent.
Digitec Galaxus also offers climate compensation for each purchase. Customers use this option for around one in ten purchases. And for those wishing to do something good for the environment without purchasing a product, Digitec Galaxus has been offering CO2 certificates since April 2021 that support a number of sustainable projects.
