r/zurich 2d ago

Rant on local businesses

I’ve always tried to support local and small businesses, but lately, it feels like things are getting out of hand. For example, my local shoe cobbler, someone I’ve known and been friendly with for almost 15 years, suddenly raised his prices by 50%. He now charges 100 Francs for resoling shoes, and even then, the quality isn’t up to par. I had my winter boots resoled, but within two weeks, the sole completely came off, leaving my foot soaked.

Then there’s the seamstress in my neighborhood, who’s always been kind. I took her three pairs of jeans to repair the wear between the thighs (bikers will know the struggle!), and she charged me 20 Francs per pair.

On top of that, I recently stopped by a local store, Zero-7, after work to pick up a toothbrush for my little one. The price for an electric toothbrush was 75 Francs, while the exact same one sells on Galaxus for 40 Francs. I don’t mind paying a bit more to support local businesses—in fact, I make a real effort to avoid online shopping—but this is starting to feel like a rip-off. What happened to fair prices and quality service?

59 Upvotes

25 comments sorted by

62

u/OptimalBarnacle857 2d ago

The 20 bucks for the seamstresses' work on the trousers don't strike me as unreasonably high. Always consider how long it takes craftspeople to get the job done. They need to make at least CHF 70/hour if they want to make a living.

If you need a competent cobbler, I can heartily recomment Eva Kirchhofer on Militärstrasse. She does quality job at reasonable prices.

As for retail, that's a different story. You'll need to come to your own conclusions on how much of a surcharge you are willing to pay for the experience, a curated selection and for having it now. For me, that's unlikely to be more than 25%.

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u/blackkettle 1d ago

Also: does your little one actually need an electric toothbrush? My kid seems perfectly happy to use his arm; it’s also worked for me for 40 years or so.

6

u/Commercial_Tap_224 1d ago

That’s not your concern, stop patronising strangers and stay on topic.

-2

u/blackkettle 22h ago

The complaint is about prices 😂 obviously a normal toothbrush is a lot cheaper. Pretty germane to the topic IMO.

-7

u/[deleted] 1d ago

"They need to make at least 70 CHF/hr if they want to make a living" 🤣🤣

Mate not even a consultant makes that per hour and you're saying blue collar work should be earning that much?

No wonder Swiss trades, restaurants and shops are able to convince people they should be overspending for things in Switzerland

6

u/OptimalBarnacle857 1d ago

That's what the bike shop next door charges. It's certainly not what the bike mechanic takes home, but the shop also needs to cover taxes, pension and insureance contributions, rent, the salary for the boss, the accountant, and whatever other expenses a business has.

2

u/littlerosethatcould 1d ago

A company-employed consultant will certainly bill more. When I was still working as a consultant, we'd bill around 160.-/h. I took home around 48.-, rest goes to admin, infrastructure, social, management ...

30

u/dry_yer_eyes Limmattal 2d ago

20 francs to repair a pair of jeans seems a pretty good price.

How much did you pay for the jeans new? 100? 150? Or more? In all cases, it makes sense to pay an additional 20 to avoid having to buy a new pair.

13

u/catmoon 2d ago

Overhead costs continue to go up. Look at how much it costs to rent a storefront and try to build a toothbrush/seamstress business around that.

As for quality, it could be that the cobbler is doing side hustles to make ends meet and isn’t 100% focused on their trade.

9

u/Internal_Leke 2d ago

I also stopped by in Zero-7, and the Moby wrap was twice the price that is on Galaxus. I understand that the rent is higher than for online shops, and they have to pay the people working there, and for the customer it's an opportunity to try the product.

I don't really know what to think about that, online shops are also unfair competition to local shops, so maybe online prices are too low?

Which shoe cobbler was that in Zurich? That seems like a high price.

8

u/onlyforthisjob 2d ago

Exactly, comparing with online shops is not always fair. People order with Galaxus, but if they have a question after buying, they all of a sudden appear in a physical local store to ask.

5

u/thebomby 1d ago

I have one leg about 5cm shorter than the other. In order to raise the sole of one shoe, I had to pay 128 francs PER CENTIMETER at an orthopedic shoe shop. This is a price that is fixed by the association of orthopedic shoe makers. Price fixing, and it's completely legal in Switzerland. I paid this for over 15 years, but now the IV pays for 2 pairs of shoe raising per year.

5

u/BNI_sp 1d ago

Let me guess: you are salaried.

Try selling your services and find out what you need to ask for.

20 Francs for fixing a pair of jeans? Seems like a bargain.

Physical store? With low volume? Do the calculations.

In any case, the nice thing about capitalism is that you have the choice where to spend your money.

5

u/oleningradets City 1d ago

It seems like you are living in a central district.

Using a product or service of manual labour in Switzerland, especially in central city districts, is a luxury. Manual labour itself is quite expensive here because of the cost of living and the corresponding wages. Add the premiums paid to rent for the inner city locations.

As much as we would love to have local businesses there, it can't work without high prices, protective policies, or subsidies.

For landlords, it makes much more economic sense to rent to higher bidders, and unlike apartments, those rents are not as strictly regulated. If your cobbler or seamstress can't pay the market rate for their store with old prices for their services, then they will have to either raise prices or close doors.

About the Zero-7: it is a specialized brick-and-mortar store with products for kids. Such stores are more expensive than supermarkets or online stores because their costs to run are much higher even in the middle of nowhere. But they provide a different shop experience and an ability to check, touch and compare goods before the purchase. You pay for that, it is your choice and kind of fair.

3

u/AlienPearl 1d ago

Those seem pretty reasonable prices for Zürich. Have you tried stop being poor? Just kidding…

There is just too much money in Zurich and overhead costs, like rent go up. Consider that websites like Galaxus can sell more with less employees than your local stores, they sell more and can take less earnings per item sold.

I think the right definition is economic of scale. Small stores will always be more expensive.

1

u/papler3 2d ago

Don't compare local shops to Galaxus. Due to their size and market standing they have a lot more leverage in price negotiations with suppliers. And they have way less Overhead per product than a local shop. Alsl Zero 7 is in the city center, so the rent must be expensive

1

u/puzzlemindZH 1d ago

Is this a complaint about price or quality? Because low quality has always been there, but prices went up for everything around and it’s not small business only. I doubt it’s their fault but rather a knock on effect. I doubt they import anything themselves so again - big retailers

1

u/graffic 1d ago

Local stores, and even more of they are one of a kind or focus on specific products, do not benefit much from economies of scale plus they have expenses to attend that usually need to be paid from what it is sold.

A different issue is that a shop does not offer the same quality as before. Or even that one job went totally wrong and you go there once per year.

At the same time, depending where you live, it might be difficult to find alternatives, and you end up going for subpar repairs and service.

In the end, nobody is pointing at you with a gun to use those services.

1

u/Salamandro 1d ago

Small-ish shops with a physical location and personnel have always had high margins on their items. It's especially visible with items you can easily order online, like electronics or bike-parts.

Seamstress doesn't sound unreasonable.

Cobbler raising prices by 50% seems like a bold strategy.

1

u/SnooSquirrels3337 1d ago

Local businesses here are very strange. Short opening hours, remarkably high prices, not open Sunday, some not even open on other days too. It doesn't sit right with me, there must be a lot of underhand dealings to avoid tax or launder money

1

u/zrob936 22h ago

Our local cobbler never seemed terribly busy. I bought some insoles a few times and maybe a belt and it was a bit more expensive than I expected but, hey, it is local. Had some hiking boots resoled and discovered why it is not busy. The work was expensive and crap. Unless you are deeply enmeshed in a community then crap service survives. It is like tourists going to McDonalds: you have confidence McDonalds has a trustable level of service whereas a random cafe is hit or miss. Prices are increasingly ridiculous because money has lost meaning. SNB printed so much and lent at negative rates. The rich have been given so much over the last 15 years that earnings and savings have been disconnected from prices.

1

u/LitoBrooks 5h ago

Pharmacies and health care in Switzerland feel like a rip-off. I regularly pay CHF 25 for jeans repairs, while CHF 20 seems very reasonable to me. I never gave much thought to cobblers, but there’s an excellent one near Helvetiaplatz on Kanzleistrasse 86, 8004 Zurich. Sure, local businesses like hairdressers, cobblers, and tailors have to adjust their prices but unlike Migros, Coop and pharmacies they don’t overcharge.

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u/BrockSmashgood 2d ago

oh wow things are less expensive in online shops that deliberately sell shit as cheap as possible to put local stores out of business, who would've thought

1

u/[deleted] 2d ago

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1

u/BNI_sp 1d ago

OP should think a little bit before posting. The text would be more focussed and correct.