Migros
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Migros (IPA: [ˈmiɡro]) is one of Switzerland's largest enterprises and certainly its largest supermarket chain. The name comes from the French "mi" for half or mid-way and "gros", which means wholesale. Thus the word connotes prices that are halfway between retail and wholesale.
The logo of the company is a large orange M, which some Swiss call "the orange giant". The firm's loyalty card is the M-cumulus card (a play on the word accumulate and a type of cloud formation).
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[edit] History
Migros was founded in 1925 in Zürich as a private enterprise by Gottlieb Duttweiler, who had the idea of selling just six basic foodstuffs at low prices to householders who, in those days, did not have ready access to markets of any kind. At first he peddled only coffee, rice, sugar, noodles, coconut oil and soap from trucks that went from one village or hamlet to another. Later he and his drivers expanded their inventory and in 1926 Duttweiler built his first market, also in Zürich. His second store, in Ticino, presaged the future because it was founded as a cooperative. By 1941 the energetic entrepreneur had built a number of markets but in that year he basically gave the business to his customers by transforming everything from his privately owned enterprises into regional cooperatives, headed by the Federation of Migros Cooperatives (FCM).
As early as 1935, Duttweiler showed his zest for expansion by founding the Hotelplan travel agency. Later the Migros brand was applied to a weekly magazine, Wir Brückenbauer in 1942. Other ventures were restaurants in 1952, gasoline stations (Migrol) in 1954, language schools (Eurocentres) in 1956, a bank (Migros Bank, Banque Migros) in 1957 and an insurance company, 1959. It opened its first foreign supermarket in the frontier region of France, at Thoiry, in 1993, and its first recreation park, Säntispark, at Abtwil in St. Gallen, in 1986.
[edit] Migros today
To this day, Migros keeps the cooperative society as its form of organization. Nowadays, a large part of the Swiss population are members of the Migros cooperative – around 2 million of Switzerland's total population of 7,2 million[1] [2], thus making Migros a supermarket chain that is owned by its customers.
Reflecting the altruism of its founder, Migros operates a number of evening schools for working adults, featuring classes in cooking, languages and other subjects. It has obligated itself to spend one percent of its annual turnover for financing cultural projects in a broad sense; the sub-organization taking care of this is called Migros Kulturprozent[3] ("cultural percent"). An example of the Kulturprozent's activity is its own record label Musiques Suisses often featuring little-known works from Swiss music history.
The supermarkets are categorized in the three size classes of M, MM and MMM, similar to Migros Türk in Turkey (sold to a Turkish group in 1975).
Migros acquired some notoriety in 1977 when it fired its severest internal critic, Hans A. Pestalozzi.
[edit] M-Budget and Migros Sélection
In 1996, influenced by the budget ranges in other supermarket chains around Europe like Tesco's Value and a business trip to Australia, Migros made their budget range called M-Budget with 70 products aimed at those with low incomes and large families. Now it has grown to 330 products including mountain bikes, snowboards, mp3 players, milk chocolate and jeans.
To promote the range, in the early noughties, Migros developed M-Budget Party with tickets costing CHF 9,90 including free non-alcoholic drinks (cola, lemonade and orange juice) and snacks (crisps, chocolate and cakes).
In 2005, together with Swisscom, Migros lauched M-Budget Mobile, a pay-as-you-go mobile phone company.
In April 2006, Migros announced the M-Budget credit card together with Fédération des coopératives Migros (FCM), GE Money Bank and MasterCard, originally with an annual rate of CHF 4,40 - low compared to credit card annual rates of CHF 100 for a MigrosBank MasterCard Argent credit card. The card will be ready by autumn 2006. After Coop, the biggest competitor of Migros, announced a credit card without any annual rate, Migros too will offer its credit card for free. Migros later announced the full details of the credit card, it will have an APR of 9,9%, the ability to gain cumulus points (1 point per 2 francs) and GE Money Bank (Switzerland) is to be one of the partners of the credit card.
In 2005, they introduced a premium line called Migros Sélection.
[edit] The Migros ethic
Migros sells neither alcoholic beverages nor cigarettes in its flagship supermarkets, but some retailers acquired by Migros continue selling these products; this includes Globus, Migrol and Denner stores, as well as their online shopping service LeShop.ch. Migros does not sell racy magazines, either.
[edit] Companies
Swiss Migros:
- Migros – supermarkets
- LeShop.ch – an online supermarket (cooperation started in 2004 - 80% of shares bought in 2006) [1]
- Migrol – petrol stations
- M-electronics– electronic stores and internet music download service
- OBI – Do it yourself stores
- FitnessPark – fitness centres
- Do it+Garden Migros – Do it yourself stores and garden centres
- Micasa – furniture stores
- MigrosBank – bank (it is the fifth-largest in Switzerland)
- Golfpark – public golf courses
- Change Migros – currency exchange
- Ex Libris – bookshops
- Migros Klubschule – adult education centres
- SportXX – sports shops
- Eurocentres – language schools
- Frey – chocolate manufactures
- Migros Magazin – the company's sales magazine
- Hotelplan – holidays company
- Florissimail – postal flower service
Globus Group (became part of Migros in 1997)
- Interio – furniture stores
- Globus – department stores
- Globus Herren – menswear stores
- Office World – office supplies (not the British Office Worlds, owned by Staples)
- Globi – a cartoon character who is mascot of the Globus Group, often refers as Switzerland's Mickey Mouse.
[edit] Competitors
The main competitor is Coop, Switzerland's second-largest supermarket chain, a cooperative like Migros, but with a more centralized organization.[4] Amongst the smaller competitors are the Manor department store chain, and more recently Carrefour and Aldi. Although Carrefour and Aldi are very large international supermarket groups, they entered the Swiss market only recently (Aldi opened its first Swiss shops in 2005) and thus operate just a few branches at the present time. However, it is expected that especially Aldi will become one of the major competitors of both Migros and Coop, as it managed to set established supermarket chains in other countries under heavy pressure through an aggressive discount strategy. A further expected competitor is Lidl which has announced to establish supermarkets in Switzerland shortly.
In January 2007, Migros acquired a majority stake in Denner Discount, effectively merging the largest and third largest food retail chains in Switzerland. According to both companies, the move was effected in order for the Denner chain to better compete with increasing foreign competition. ([2]).
[edit] References
- ^ Article by Thomas Hammer in German newspaper Die Zeit (in German)
- ^ Article by Constantin Seibt in Swiss newspaper WOZ (in German)
- ^ Official site of Migros Kulturprozent (in German, French, and Italian)
- ^ Article "Coop (Schweiz)" in German Wikipedia
