23 ms·

Digitec Galaxus now displays warranty score and return rate

1029 points by faebi 4y ago

mirekrusin 4y ago
After moving from UK to Switzerland I was missing Amazon until I discovered galaxus/digitech. It’s great and feels so much faster, amazon has tons of clutter and dishonest reviews. Historic price is awesome, the whole thing is just much more honest.
- cranekam 4y ago
  Amazon is miserable unless you know what you’re looking for. If I have to search for something it’s almost game over immediately — I’m not going to wade through page after page of cheap junk with no sensible way to filter the results.
dboreham 4y ago
Presumably implemented with microservices.
- Annatar 4y ago
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crazygringo 4y ago
Seems like this isn't per-product, but rather per-brand in a particular category. So while it seems like a big step forwards (great!), it's still not going to tell you if a particular item from a brand is a big lemon. And in my experience, that's often what happens when a well-known brand starts putting out a few "budget" items. (Happened to me recently on a blender that burned out on first use, and going back to search the user reviews, it seems to be a notorious problem for that specific model of blender, but not the brand overall.) Would be amazing if Amazon could display per-product stats on returns, at least for items with >10,000 total sales. (In contrast, warranties usually/always seem to be handled directly through the manufacturer in the US at least, so Amazon wouldn't even have that data.)
raphaelj 4y ago
Never heard about Galaxus, but looking at their e-shop, I felt like being propelled 10y in the future. Their UI is so much ahead any e-commerce website I ever seen.
- Gigachad 4y ago
  Also surprised. The site is very refreshing and unique while staying very functional.
mirabel-stephen 4y ago
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Spooky23 4y ago
When I worked retail sales you definitely saw different return rates on different SKUs. I tried to collect data for a college project but the sample size was too small. (My class was in the spring, and sales boomed in the fall) I was always surprised that the company didn’t do that, as they definitely lost alot of money to shrink and exceptions for high fail devices. At one point the company self-funded warranties, so a lemon had to kill profitability.
sakex 4y ago
Didn't expect to see Galaxus here, i buy all my stuff there
odysseus 4y ago
I'd like to see Amazon do similar and make this data available publicly on each product's page. Some return rate data is currently figured into "Amazon's Choice" labeling - for example, low return rate on an established product, more likely to be labeled Amazon's Choice. But I'd like to see if Amazon has the guts to just make it all public.
ensignavenger 4y ago
I wonder if the warranty information is correct? From some of the comments, it sounds like they do warranty service in-house for some items at least? I wonder if Apple really has that much lower % of warranty issues, or if Apple owners tend to get warranty service direct from Apple instead of going through Galaxus, and so they don't have the data on Apple products?
zwaps 4y ago
If you now add a "made in X" indicator, I guess I will order in Switzerland from now on
mavu 4y ago
That is one of the cases where someone does something and you ask yourself: Why has this not happened since forever and is absolute standard everywhere?
jerzyt 4y ago
This is really a great way to sabotage your competitor. Have a bunch of friend and family buy a product and flood Galaxus with bogus returns and warranty claims. We'll see how it works.
cvccvroomvroom 4y ago
My mind is blown. I don't know how sustainable this is without manufacturers pulling products or filing lawsuits.
- brookst 4y ago
  Game theory that. You’re a manufacturer. This place sells a lot of your stuff. Do you sue them or pull your products? What is the EV of either action?
- snovv_crash 4y ago
  This is the biggest online retailer in Switzerland, and they got to this position by being the most trustworthy. People will pay a small premium over other places because they know it will always arrive in good condition, quickly, with accurate descriptions and easy returns. There are also physical locations you can go to for pickup, returns, etc. if you need a person to speak to.
hackerman_fi 4y ago
”I’m not aware of any other online retailer in the world that discloses this data” Let me help you with that. Finland’s largest online retailer has had it for years, example: https://www.verkkokauppa.com/fi/product/645007/Sony-WH-1000XM4-Bluetooth-vastamelukuulokkeet-musta/lisatiedot https://www.verkkokauppa.com/fi/product/645007/Sony-WH-1000X...
- neop1x 4y ago
  Alza (a czech retailer also available in Germany) has had it for many years as well but none of them appear to provide a comparison between brands in a category as Galaxus does. https://m.alza.de/asus-rt-ax53u-d6669501.htm https://m.alza.de/asus-rt-ax53u-d6669501.htm
RajuVarghese 4y ago
This post in HN has made my day! I have been a Digitec customer for over 15 years and I still buy all my tech items from them. Or from Galaxus if it is a non-tech. I am thrilled to see this "little Swiss" company getting wider exposure. I am glad to say that my overall experience with them has been 5-star. I remember I bought computer components from them in the early days as that was the cheapest way to get a custom computer built with the best parts. There were other sites but Digitec stood out when it came to dependability. Hat's off to you, Digitec/Galaxus!!
- config_yml 4y ago
  I also bought my first PC with them in 2001. Back then their site was just for ordering custom pc’s. I spent hours on their site building the perfect custom setup. Then went to pick it up at their “warehouse” which was just a room with racks full of pc components and the guys sitting on the floor building the machines haha.
- saiya-jin 4y ago
  For many items, they have much bigger stock than anybody else. Ie kids stuff and toys etc. You open similar category on web, and there is 10,000 products when any competition has 200. Often if I look for something a bit non-mainstream, they are the only one in CH who has it, at reasonable prices.
sfc32 4y ago
I live in Switzerland and shop a lot from Galaxus. This new initiative is very welcome and innovative, I hope other retailers follow and especially manufacturers stop shopping products that end up in landfill. Galaxus is great in terms of range and delivery time. They have local stores in city centers where you can pick up items to get them even quicker and avoid the packaging associated with shipping. However, their return policy is terrible. If you return something with an opened box, there is a 10% return tax. https://www.galaxus.ch/en/wiki/560 https://www.galaxus.ch/en/wiki/560
- ThreeFx 4y ago
  Why is that terrible? Presumably it is much harder to sell now. If you didn’t want it, why buy it in the first place?
  - ulimn 4y ago
    Also, I think in case of a lot of stuff it's hard to tell if you also used it once or twice (e.g. small electronics which can be easily re-packaged).
iwangulenko 4y ago
Happy to see a Swiss online retailer on HN, where the audience is more US focused. Amazon has little traction in Switzerland still. Swiss people like to support local businesses, hurray!
- bauruine 4y ago
  The Amazon website is just pure and utter garbage. I seriously don't know why anyone can buy anything there. They would have to sell everything at least at halve the price for me even considering using them instead of Digitec. Amazon has little traction because Switzerland is small so they don't care, not as price sensitive as others and hence people don't like to torment themselves just to save a few bucks.
RektBoy 4y ago
Reminds me of Galactus, all-knowing user service provider aggregator. Hehe
andreicap 4y ago
One feature of Galaxus that I love and didn’t see anywhere else is that you can sell back on the marketplace the stuff you bought on Galaxus once you don’t need it anymore. Tt facilitates the payment and communication in a very straightforward manner.
drcongo 4y ago
I wish they delivered to the UK, I would switch so much of my online buying to them instantly for this. It's still incredibly useful as a resource when buying elsewhere though, I just wish I could reward them for this consumer advocacy. I just looked up a product I've had problems with - Netatmo Presence outdoor security cameras - and found they're rock bottom of the in-warranty returns list: https://www.galaxus.ch/en/s1/product/netatmo-presence-1920-x-1080-pixels-network-camera-5871229?ip=netatmo https://www.galaxus.ch/en/s1/product/netatmo-presence-1920-x...
borispavlovic 4y ago
They have few hundreds developers in Belgrade, Serbia https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/digitec-galaxus-doo/ https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/digitec-galaxus-doo/. I'm very proud of their work.
steffenkame 4y ago
I this a great step for environment protection.
CMdH8 4y ago
Yep I like them too but let's not repeat the Amazon issue on a small scale and support alternative web shops like Brack and Microspot. The latter has one huge advantage over Digitec Galaxus, a show room in HB to go and pick up delivery.
drumttocs8 4y ago
Very cool, but if we've learned anything from Amazon et al, it's that features that effectively reduce engagement- and therefore, sales- are ultimately doomed to be scrapped.
aphroz 4y ago
Interestingly enough, the culture of returns in Switzerland is very different compared to the US. Also the quality of service vs price makes it a very appealing market but very hard to penetrate. This is why international players have always had issues to do so. Swiss customers care more about quality than price. On Galaxus you can decide to chose slow delivery so you will not necessarly receive your product the next day. But for the same price: https://basic-tutorials.com/news/galaxus-and-digitec-now-deliver-particularly-slowly-on-request/ https://basic-tutorials.com/news/galaxus-and-digitec-now-del... Edit: added link
- posix86 4y ago
  This might be a factor but it must be stated that the primary reason why international players had trouble penetrating Swiss markets was due to trade regulations which prevent retailers to sell anything duty-free or at a reasonable duty in Swiss markets. This is why Amazon et. al. don't even attempt to sell there; you're simply not competitive if you have to add 8% or something on top of every item. If you open Amazon from Switzerland and search for anything at all, you do get tons of products that seem nice & at a reasonable price, but click on any of them and it will say that the vendor doesn't ship to Switzerland. And this is when you set your location to Switzerland! There's no way to filter for products that ship there, Amazon simply doesn't bother. This is why e commerce stores like Galaxus & Digitec (the tech-products twin of Galaxus) were even capable of getting so large in Switzerland, while in other countries any competition was swept away by Amazon. There are some exceptions to this, e.g. Zalando, a clothes retailer, does deliver into Switzerland... I know that they have large logistics centers in Switzerland and basically send their products b2b, maybe that doesn't pay off for Amazon? I don't know.
  - ahtihn 4y ago
    This sounds a bit surprising. Tons of online clothes retailers ship to Switzerland. 8% doesn't matter that much, you'll see bigger differences than that for the same item between different retailers within Switzerland. A lot of people here don't shop around and aren't that price sensitive.
  - barrkel 4y ago
sys42590 4y ago
I really like this step... especially because they sell a mix of "good" brands and stuff you could get on Aliexpress for a tenth of the price. One more observation: If you look at the smartphone scores, you'll see that Apple warranty rates are WAY below other brands. I assume the reason for this is that for Apple you don't have to go through the retailer you bought it to have it fixed under warranty. For Samsung et al. there's little option to have your phone or tablet fixed without reaching out to the place you bought it.
- fomine3 4y ago
  So direct repair service network works well to make the rate lower. It looks good incentive for all. Shop don't need support cost, customer get better service, manufacturer make products looks reliable.
- Tijdreiziger 4y ago
  Samsung has service centers too. I don't know the situation in Switzerland, but in the EU, the manufacturer warranty (whether from Apple or Samsung) is usually only 1 year. EU consumer law mandates a 2-year minimum warranty, so after the first year, you have to go through the store.
  - sys42590 4y ago
    2 years ago, I went to an Samsung authorized third party repair shop to to have a cracked screen replaced. They told me it will take 5 weeks to have my phone repaired. I then went to an unauthorized repair shop and they replaced my cracked screen with an unauthorized replacement part that only had 2 finger multi-touch (without telling me of course). I don't personally own Apple devices, but from people close to me I know first hand that Apple's service is usually better than my experience two years ago.
  - Lukas_Skywalker 4y ago
    In Switzerland, the retailer must provide a two year warranty. The retailers can not shorten that span, but (strangely) can remove it entirely. The customer needs to know this before buying though. The manufacturers warranty is up to them and is not mandatory.
Kenji 4y ago
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ndsipa_pomu 4y ago
That looks to be a great idea to me to replace faked user reviews on well known shopping sites. I expect it could be games though
- turtlebits 4y ago
  Indeed. Sounds good in principle, but how do you prevent someone from repeatedly returning items just to hurt a competitor and/or making frivolous defect/warranty claims against them?
  - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
    > how do you prevent someone from repeatedly returning items just to hurt a competitor and/or making frivolous defect/warranty claims against them? Seems like a subset of the fake-review problem. Except with money exchanged, tangible costs to the retailer and more documentation.
  - ThePhysicist 4y ago
    Faking a product defect is probably way harder than just submitting a fake review. Eventually the retailer will notice that something is off as you have to send the product back and it has to be defective. How do you create a plausible warranty defect in a TV, for example?
    - truetraveller 4y ago
      Just break it? I mean the guy is already scamming, go all out.
    - _trampeltier 4y ago
      And if it's not warranty, you have to pay it yourself. And you still have to buy the product in the first place.
  - minsc_and_boo 4y ago
    There are hidden reputation and anti-fraud mechanisms at play in a lot of consumer areas (incentives, reviews, etc.), it would be trivial to apply them to this too. Most fraudulent activity isn't attacking competitors, as it's prohibitively expensive, but instead propping up their own reputation. i.e. Amazon's fake reviews are mostly five-stars.
tr33house 4y ago
imagine if this was on Amazon! I really hope this catches on!
- XCSme 4y ago
  Meanwhile, on Amazon I ordered something with "same-day delivery", and it hasn't even been shipped 5 days later by the seller. There is no way to leave a review, because by their policy if there were shipment issues, you can't leave a review for the product (I tried once, when I paid for a shelf that I really needed, and it took 2 weeks before the order was marked as cancelled, I left a review that I never received the product, it was deleted).
  - Pxtl 4y ago
    AFAIK you can complain about delivery stuff under seller feedback, just not under product reviews.
    - XCSme 4y ago
      But that is private feedback, right? There is not even a rating for sellers, as on eBay, so buying from a 3rd party seller feels as risky as buying it from a random website. This doesn't even go to Amazon I think, it goes directly to the seller. EDIT: I stand corrected, you can leave public feedback on the seller's page (it's a bit hard to get there, you have to go through the sold product). That being said, refunding the non-delivered item doesn't seem to be possible without contacting support.
- Pxtl 4y ago
  Does it matter? Any shoddy goods on Amazon are immediately pulled from the store, re-stickered, and then reintroduced under a new brand name, possibly recycling the listing of a popular and successful product using the shit-of-Theseus trick.
  - crazygringo 4y ago
    Sure, for no-name brands. But people also buy tons of brand-name stuff on Amazon, where this can't happen. I absolutely want to know the return rate for name-brand stuff.
kioleanu 4y ago
I’ve seen this exactly in an online shop in Romania. Then they tried refusing my return of a product citing a gross misinterpretation of the law. They caved in after I threatened invoking the great goods of consumer protection. Found out afterwards that they’re notorious for such gimmicks
sschueller 4y ago
The way they do warranty is really awesome and uncomplicated. Recently I had a set of headphones fail after ~1 year and all I had to do was find the item in my order history click a button, answer a few questions and in this case they just credited the amount to my account, didn't even have to send them back. Instructions told me to recycle them. There is a certain amount of trust in the system. However it can also go wrong. Once I sent a GPU for repair because a fan stopped working and it was still under warranty. Sadly they or their repair center marked it as a no fix, recycled the card and I was credited the amount I paid, sadly that was during the GPU crunch and a card that had similar performance was not available for even close that price. Replacing a fan I could have done my self but I thought a warranty claim would be the correct thing to do incase something else breaks.
- lolc 4y ago
  Can confirm, I had that happen with a cable. I filed a warranty claim and the response was "you dispose it, we credit it". When a second cable broke (oh no) they wanted me to send it in though.
  - lobocinza 4y ago
    I had this experience with Logitech and Anker. Logitech actually ended up sending me two keyboards. First they sent me the same model but with a different layout (but still usable) and when I complained about the layout they sent me a more expensive model with the expected layout. No returns, few questions asked. Excellent RMA experience but that being said their mechanical keyboards AFAIK all have some sort of chronic issue and just aren't worth the price. Anker didn't ask me to return the earphones but refunded only 1/3 of what I paid (6m remaining in a 18m warranty). Mixed feelings about it though the experience was positive. On general I expect things to last a lot more than the warranted period. Anyway I still have the earphones and they still work (with reduced functionality) so let's say that I remained with a residual + the refunded amount.
- fancazzista 4y ago
  If you’re not home and the package doesn’t fit your mailbox, they will just leave it in front of the door of the apartment complex. Lived there for two and a half years and nothing was ever stolen.
j7ake 4y ago
My experience with returning on Galaxus was very positive. Nobody does it better!
senthil_rajasek 4y ago
Are the data used to generate this score and rate publicly available ? How does one verify they are true and not just another marketing trick.
Hamuko 4y ago
Finnish retailer Verkkokauppa.com has had something similar for a couple of years now. If I for example look up the 64 GB Apple iPad (Wi-Fi), I can see that it has 0.43% repairs and 0.17% returns, and that the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip3 has 0% returns and 2.17% repairs.
- mordae 4y ago
  Same here in Czechia for the major shops.
matsemann 4y ago
I actually don't care that much about these numbers, as they are not my problem. 5 year warranty by law (no matter what the maker gives you), makes it their risk if they make brittle products. Compared to in a market with little consumer protection laws (US), where what you buy is a uninformed gamble as to how it will last.
- luckylion 4y ago
  You don't want faulty equipment. Not because you won't get a replacement, but because you'll have faulty equipment and will have to spend time dealing with it.
greenthrow 4y ago
This is just straight up an ad. This should be removed.
- faebi 4y ago
  Not really, I don't work for Migros, Galaxus or Digitec. I'm just a happy customer who likes their moves to more transparency.
- imp0cat 4y ago
  Guerilla marketing at its best. ;) But then again, they only ship to Switzerland, no? So what do they gain from exposing the site on HN?
- Annatar 4y ago
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- Too 4y ago
  Ad or not, I found this concept and the data very novel and interesting.
- mikl 4y ago
  Any product announcement is an ad. This happens to be an interesting innovation in online retail, quite on point for this site.
  - greenthrow 4y ago
    I obviously disagree. Reviews are not a new thing. Yes this is a slightly different spin on it but ultimately it is less information than reviews since we don't know why things were returned.
    - mikl 4y ago
      I don’t see how you can equate this with reviews. Reviews are almost useless these days, because they can be (and are) spammed by bots and only a small minority of real buyers post reviews. But since returns are handled by Galaxus themselves, these numbers can’t be easily fudged. You’d have to actually buy the product and return it to negatively affect these scores.
jasmer 4y ago
Retail has long needed a shake up in the face of Amazon.
TomGullen 4y ago
New attack vector for black hat product manufacturers to abuse and compete on, hopefully it won't devolve into this level of competition though!
- lolc 4y ago
  Isn't that a metric you want manufacturers to compete on? How could they fake this?
sixhobbits 4y ago
I love Galaxus! Most online retailers could probably increase their revenue by xx% just by copying some of their patterns. - price history so you can see when sales are fake - one click "deliver to my closest branch and I will pick it up and pay there so I don't have to muck around with online payments" option - automatic high quality translation of all product information and reviews into all offered languages - simple downloads on order page for invoice and receipt And many other things. Some things are still annoying like they don't accept cards from some countries, but they get a lot right.
- nix23 4y ago
  They where much better before the Migros takeover, especially the two owners just wanted to make 10k/month the rest goes to the customer, for a short time we had better prices as..well ....whole EU. But still it's the best we have...
- gesman 4y ago
  Just spent 400 CHF at Galaxus, same day no charge delivery. Ho hassles.
- ajsnigrutin 4y ago
  > - one click "deliver to my closest branch and I will pick it up and pay there so I don't have to muck around with online payments" option I've started using this as much as possible, especially during christmas. You find something, "in stock", supposed to be delivered the next day or a day after, you order, then nothing one day, two days, three days, then you call, "yeah, it's still with the distributer, it'll be ready tomorrow", two more days pass, you call again, want a refund, they "cannot refund now", because the product is supposedly in the mail already, then you wait, christmas goes by, and around 15. january you get a call, that they cannot get the item you wanted, and try to upsell some either more expensive or worse option. Now I just order for physical pickup and "pay there" option.. and if it's not there, cancelling is easy, because they don't have your money yet, and they cannot lie about the item being already sent.
  - smcl 4y ago
rrgok 4y ago
Even tough I like this feature. The title is misleading. It doesn't show the return rate of the product you are seeing. Example, Go here, randomly chosen https://www.digitec.ch/en/s1/product/yamaha-rx-v4a-52-channels-av-receiver-14005877 https://www.digitec.ch/en/s1/product/yamaha-rx-v4a-52-channe... And then scroll down and click warranty and then click "Detailed view", it says > How often does a product of this brand in the «AV Receiver» category have a defect within the first 24 months? This doesn't mean what the title says, right? I'm not a native english speaker, but I hope my reading skill is not that bad. I read it like: Yamaha return scores in "AV Reciever". If Yamaha had 100 product in "AV Reciever", it doesn't say almost nothing to me regarding the Yamaha RX-V4A I'm seeing. It could be that all 3% (example number) defect are Yamaha RX-V4A, or completely 3 (assuming Yamaha has 100 different products) different products.
- rippercushions 4y ago
  Identifying a "product" isn't as straightforward as it seems. Large retailers insist (and get) custom product codes from major manufacturers, which are just a different code slapped onto the same box, but accomplish the goal of making price comparisons impossible. And then you've got more legitimate reasons for different codes, like the same physical product ships with 27 different types of power plugs, warranty leaflets etc for various countries.
- sureglymop 4y ago
  Click on "Returns" instead of "Warranty".
  - rrgok 4y ago
    It says almost the same: "How often is a product of this brand in the «XXXX» category returned"... It doesn't says how often the product I'm seeing is returned. But A product of the brand BBBB in the category XXXX is returned. I don't know, it is still a useful metric nonetheless. But it is still a misleading title.
stabbles 4y ago
The largest shareholder in Digitec Galaxus AG is Migros [1], which is a cooperative federation with more than 2 million members. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Migros https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Migros
- jibcage 4y ago
  It thrills me to pieces seeing Migros and Galaxus on here. I wish there was something remotely similar to Migros in the US.
  - Zi2JDrgLmx6J2t 4y ago
    Terrible white-label groceries? Don't you guys have Trader Joe's for this purpose?
    - archon810 4y ago
      Confused by this comment. Trader Joe's is universally loved for its products, including groceries.
petodo 4y ago
Is this really worth article? Czech online shops publish reliability of products for years. 2nd biggest shows reliability, for instance iphone 12 has 99% https://www.czc.cz/apple-iphone-12-128gb-green/301129/produkt https://www.czc.cz/apple-iphone-12-128gb-green/301129/produk... the biggest shop does inverse how many (1%) used warranty https://m.alza.cz/iphone-12-64gb-cerna-d6216436.htm https://m.alza.cz/iphone-12-64gb-cerna-d6216436.htm this is worth checking before buying something because 97% reliability is for instance extremely bad compared to 99%, you are 3 times more likely to get faulty piece there is also monopolistic price comparison website heureka.cz where you can check price history years back, compare all shops and set price tracking with notification covering pretty much all online shops
- david927 4y ago
  Wait... are you saying Jara Cimrman did it first?!
  - petodo 4y ago
    well he was born in Vienna, so not sure that would count
- roesel 4y ago
  This might be true, but both czc and alza have much to learn from digitec/galaxus regarding their website useability/cleanliness/etc. Alza nowadays is closer to Aliexpress than anything else with their endless dark patterns/spam/clutter. I wish we had something like Digitec/Galaxus in Czechia. Mironet is probably the closest, but their product range is limited and they're still not quite there.
  - petodo 4y ago
    honestly i don't care about website design at all, I just go to heureka, find which shop had lowest price with shipping and is well established and then just click buy after redirecting, can't imagine looking for something directly on particular website and be loyal to some shop and not to my wallet, only reason I'm willing to pay slightly more for Softcom or Datart is they are next to my home so no need shipping and can use easy return/RMA, but if price difference is more than cost of return shipping, them I just choose cheapest (non shady) option (and for the record I almost never buy from CZC and especially Alza, which is like the most expensive shop among the big ones)
jjcm 4y ago
I think this is great, and it serves both the interests of galaxus and the user. The user will pick things that have less returns, and in the process galaxus will (hopefully) have to field less returns as well.
glanzwulf 4y ago
That's a great policy. I've used them a couple of times recently and was very impressed, now I might just use them even more.
bbojan 4y ago
Product categorization on Galaxus is the best I've seen so far. Light years ahead compared to e.g. Amazon.
r2b2 4y ago
I'd love to see re-purchase delay[0] and re-purchase rate[1] as well. Useful looking at multiple highly rated products and products that you go through more quickly (Eg. many bathroom supplies). -- [0] Time between a customer's purchase and re-purchase of a product. [1] Percent of original buyers that buy again.
- quotehelp1829 4y ago
  Hi r2b2! I'm sorry to address you like this, but I believe you to be a creator of Owlmail.io service and on website there is no contact information for the site, also no contact information on your profile and no direct-messaging feature on HN. So here's a super off-topic message - sorry!! I can't create account, simply nothing happens when I enter my email address and click "Next" or hit Enter key and so on and such. As Firefox Relay is not available in my country I was hoping to try your service. I have few more questions about Owlmail so I would appreciate if you could let me know if there is a more appropriate channel for asking those. If I'm mistaken or you'd rather not engage like this - apologies!

1029 points by faebi 4y ago

After moving from UK to Switzerland I was missing Amazon until I discovered galaxus/digitech. It’s great and feels so much faster, amazon has tons of clutter and dishonest reviews. Historic price is awesome, the whole thing is just much more honest.

cranekam 4y ago
Amazon is miserable unless you know what you’re looking for. If I have to search for something it’s almost game over immediately — I’m not going to wade through page after page of cheap junk with no sensible way to filter the results.

dboreham 4y ago

Presumably implemented with microservices.

Annatar 4y ago
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crazygringo 4y ago

Seems like this isn't per-product, but rather per-brand in a particular category. So while it seems like a big step forwards (great!), it's still not going to tell you if a particular item from a brand is a big lemon. And in my experience, that's often what happens when a well-known brand starts putting out a few "budget" items. (Happened to me recently on a blender that burned out on first use, and going back to search the user reviews, it seems to be a notorious problem for that specific model of blender, but not the brand overall.) Would be amazing if Amazon could display per-product stats on returns, at least for items with >10,000 total sales. (In contrast, warranties usually/always seem to be handled directly through the manufacturer in the US at least, so Amazon wouldn't even have that data.)

raphaelj 4y ago

Never heard about Galaxus, but looking at their e-shop, I felt like being propelled 10y in the future. Their UI is so much ahead any e-commerce website I ever seen.

Gigachad 4y ago
Also surprised. The site is very refreshing and unique while staying very functional.

mirabel-stephen 4y ago

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Spooky23 4y ago

When I worked retail sales you definitely saw different return rates on different SKUs. I tried to collect data for a college project but the sample size was too small. (My class was in the spring, and sales boomed in the fall) I was always surprised that the company didn’t do that, as they definitely lost alot of money to shrink and exceptions for high fail devices. At one point the company self-funded warranties, so a lemon had to kill profitability.

sakex 4y ago

Didn't expect to see Galaxus here, i buy all my stuff there

odysseus 4y ago

I'd like to see Amazon do similar and make this data available publicly on each product's page. Some return rate data is currently figured into "Amazon's Choice" labeling - for example, low return rate on an established product, more likely to be labeled Amazon's Choice. But I'd like to see if Amazon has the guts to just make it all public.

ensignavenger 4y ago

I wonder if the warranty information is correct? From some of the comments, it sounds like they do warranty service in-house for some items at least? I wonder if Apple really has that much lower % of warranty issues, or if Apple owners tend to get warranty service direct from Apple instead of going through Galaxus, and so they don't have the data on Apple products?

zwaps 4y ago

If you now add a "made in X" indicator, I guess I will order in Switzerland from now on

mavu 4y ago

That is one of the cases where someone does something and you ask yourself: Why has this not happened since forever and is absolute standard everywhere?

jerzyt 4y ago

This is really a great way to sabotage your competitor. Have a bunch of friend and family buy a product and flood Galaxus with bogus returns and warranty claims. We'll see how it works.

cvccvroomvroom 4y ago

My mind is blown. I don't know how sustainable this is without manufacturers pulling products or filing lawsuits.

brookst 4y ago
Game theory that. You’re a manufacturer. This place sells a lot of your stuff. Do you sue them or pull your products? What is the EV of either action?
snovv_crash 4y ago
This is the biggest online retailer in Switzerland, and they got to this position by being the most trustworthy. People will pay a small premium over other places because they know it will always arrive in good condition, quickly, with accurate descriptions and easy returns. There are also physical locations you can go to for pickup, returns, etc. if you need a person to speak to.

hackerman_fi 4y ago

”I’m not aware of any other online retailer in the world that discloses this data” Let me help you with that. Finland’s largest online retailer has had it for years, example: https://www.verkkokauppa.com/fi/product/645007/Sony-WH-1000XM4-Bluetooth-vastamelukuulokkeet-musta/lisatiedot https://www.verkkokauppa.com/fi/product/645007/Sony-WH-1000X...

neop1x 4y ago
Alza (a czech retailer also available in Germany) has had it for many years as well but none of them appear to provide a comparison between brands in a category as Galaxus does. https://m.alza.de/asus-rt-ax53u-d6669501.htm https://m.alza.de/asus-rt-ax53u-d6669501.htm

RajuVarghese 4y ago

This post in HN has made my day! I have been a Digitec customer for over 15 years and I still buy all my tech items from them. Or from Galaxus if it is a non-tech. I am thrilled to see this "little Swiss" company getting wider exposure. I am glad to say that my overall experience with them has been 5-star. I remember I bought computer components from them in the early days as that was the cheapest way to get a custom computer built with the best parts. There were other sites but Digitec stood out when it came to dependability. Hat's off to you, Digitec/Galaxus!!

config_yml 4y ago
I also bought my first PC with them in 2001. Back then their site was just for ordering custom pc’s. I spent hours on their site building the perfect custom setup. Then went to pick it up at their “warehouse” which was just a room with racks full of pc components and the guys sitting on the floor building the machines haha.
saiya-jin 4y ago
For many items, they have much bigger stock than anybody else. Ie kids stuff and toys etc. You open similar category on web, and there is 10,000 products when any competition has 200. Often if I look for something a bit non-mainstream, they are the only one in CH who has it, at reasonable prices.

sfc32 4y ago

I live in Switzerland and shop a lot from Galaxus. This new initiative is very welcome and innovative, I hope other retailers follow and especially manufacturers stop shopping products that end up in landfill. Galaxus is great in terms of range and delivery time. They have local stores in city centers where you can pick up items to get them even quicker and avoid the packaging associated with shipping. However, their return policy is terrible. If you return something with an opened box, there is a 10% return tax. https://www.galaxus.ch/en/wiki/560 https://www.galaxus.ch/en/wiki/560

ThreeFx 4y ago
Why is that terrible? Presumably it is much harder to sell now. If you didn’t want it, why buy it in the first place?
- ulimn 4y ago
  Also, I think in case of a lot of stuff it's hard to tell if you also used it once or twice (e.g. small electronics which can be easily re-packaged).

iwangulenko 4y ago

Happy to see a Swiss online retailer on HN, where the audience is more US focused. Amazon has little traction in Switzerland still. Swiss people like to support local businesses, hurray!

bauruine 4y ago
The Amazon website is just pure and utter garbage. I seriously don't know why anyone can buy anything there. They would have to sell everything at least at halve the price for me even considering using them instead of Digitec. Amazon has little traction because Switzerland is small so they don't care, not as price sensitive as others and hence people don't like to torment themselves just to save a few bucks.

RektBoy 4y ago

Reminds me of Galactus, all-knowing user service provider aggregator. Hehe

andreicap 4y ago

One feature of Galaxus that I love and didn’t see anywhere else is that you can sell back on the marketplace the stuff you bought on Galaxus once you don’t need it anymore. Tt facilitates the payment and communication in a very straightforward manner.

drcongo 4y ago

I wish they delivered to the UK, I would switch so much of my online buying to them instantly for this. It's still incredibly useful as a resource when buying elsewhere though, I just wish I could reward them for this consumer advocacy. I just looked up a product I've had problems with - Netatmo Presence outdoor security cameras - and found they're rock bottom of the in-warranty returns list: https://www.galaxus.ch/en/s1/product/netatmo-presence-1920-x-1080-pixels-network-camera-5871229?ip=netatmo https://www.galaxus.ch/en/s1/product/netatmo-presence-1920-x...

borispavlovic 4y ago

They have few hundreds developers in Belgrade, Serbia https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/digitec-galaxus-doo/ https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/digitec-galaxus-doo/. I'm very proud of their work.

steffenkame 4y ago

I this a great step for environment protection.

CMdH8 4y ago

Yep I like them too but let's not repeat the Amazon issue on a small scale and support alternative web shops like Brack and Microspot. The latter has one huge advantage over Digitec Galaxus, a show room in HB to go and pick up delivery.

drumttocs8 4y ago

Very cool, but if we've learned anything from Amazon et al, it's that features that effectively reduce engagement- and therefore, sales- are ultimately doomed to be scrapped.

aphroz 4y ago

Interestingly enough, the culture of returns in Switzerland is very different compared to the US. Also the quality of service vs price makes it a very appealing market but very hard to penetrate. This is why international players have always had issues to do so. Swiss customers care more about quality than price. On Galaxus you can decide to chose slow delivery so you will not necessarly receive your product the next day. But for the same price: https://basic-tutorials.com/news/galaxus-and-digitec-now-deliver-particularly-slowly-on-request/ https://basic-tutorials.com/news/galaxus-and-digitec-now-del... Edit: added link

posix86 4y ago
This might be a factor but it must be stated that the primary reason why international players had trouble penetrating Swiss markets was due to trade regulations which prevent retailers to sell anything duty-free or at a reasonable duty in Swiss markets. This is why Amazon et. al. don't even attempt to sell there; you're simply not competitive if you have to add 8% or something on top of every item. If you open Amazon from Switzerland and search for anything at all, you do get tons of products that seem nice & at a reasonable price, but click on any of them and it will say that the vendor doesn't ship to Switzerland. And this is when you set your location to Switzerland! There's no way to filter for products that ship there, Amazon simply doesn't bother. This is why e commerce stores like Galaxus & Digitec (the tech-products twin of Galaxus) were even capable of getting so large in Switzerland, while in other countries any competition was swept away by Amazon. There are some exceptions to this, e.g. Zalando, a clothes retailer, does deliver into Switzerland... I know that they have large logistics centers in Switzerland and basically send their products b2b, maybe that doesn't pay off for Amazon? I don't know.
- ahtihn 4y ago
  This sounds a bit surprising. Tons of online clothes retailers ship to Switzerland. 8% doesn't matter that much, you'll see bigger differences than that for the same item between different retailers within Switzerland. A lot of people here don't shop around and aren't that price sensitive.
- barrkel 4y ago

sys42590 4y ago

I really like this step... especially because they sell a mix of "good" brands and stuff you could get on Aliexpress for a tenth of the price. One more observation: If you look at the smartphone scores, you'll see that Apple warranty rates are WAY below other brands. I assume the reason for this is that for Apple you don't have to go through the retailer you bought it to have it fixed under warranty. For Samsung et al. there's little option to have your phone or tablet fixed without reaching out to the place you bought it.

fomine3 4y ago
So direct repair service network works well to make the rate lower. It looks good incentive for all. Shop don't need support cost, customer get better service, manufacturer make products looks reliable.
Tijdreiziger 4y ago
Samsung has service centers too. I don't know the situation in Switzerland, but in the EU, the manufacturer warranty (whether from Apple or Samsung) is usually only 1 year. EU consumer law mandates a 2-year minimum warranty, so after the first year, you have to go through the store.
- sys42590 4y ago
  2 years ago, I went to an Samsung authorized third party repair shop to to have a cracked screen replaced. They told me it will take 5 weeks to have my phone repaired. I then went to an unauthorized repair shop and they replaced my cracked screen with an unauthorized replacement part that only had 2 finger multi-touch (without telling me of course). I don't personally own Apple devices, but from people close to me I know first hand that Apple's service is usually better than my experience two years ago.
- Lukas_Skywalker 4y ago
  In Switzerland, the retailer must provide a two year warranty. The retailers can not shorten that span, but (strangely) can remove it entirely. The customer needs to know this before buying though. The manufacturers warranty is up to them and is not mandatory.

Kenji 4y ago

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ndsipa_pomu 4y ago

That looks to be a great idea to me to replace faked user reviews on well known shopping sites. I expect it could be games though

turtlebits 4y ago
Indeed. Sounds good in principle, but how do you prevent someone from repeatedly returning items just to hurt a competitor and/or making frivolous defect/warranty claims against them?
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  > how do you prevent someone from repeatedly returning items just to hurt a competitor and/or making frivolous defect/warranty claims against them? Seems like a subset of the fake-review problem. Except with money exchanged, tangible costs to the retailer and more documentation.
- ThePhysicist 4y ago
  Faking a product defect is probably way harder than just submitting a fake review. Eventually the retailer will notice that something is off as you have to send the product back and it has to be defective. How do you create a plausible warranty defect in a TV, for example?
  - truetraveller 4y ago
    Just break it? I mean the guy is already scamming, go all out.
  - _trampeltier 4y ago
    And if it's not warranty, you have to pay it yourself. And you still have to buy the product in the first place.
- minsc_and_boo 4y ago
  There are hidden reputation and anti-fraud mechanisms at play in a lot of consumer areas (incentives, reviews, etc.), it would be trivial to apply them to this too. Most fraudulent activity isn't attacking competitors, as it's prohibitively expensive, but instead propping up their own reputation. i.e. Amazon's fake reviews are mostly five-stars.

tr33house 4y ago

imagine if this was on Amazon! I really hope this catches on!

XCSme 4y ago
Meanwhile, on Amazon I ordered something with "same-day delivery", and it hasn't even been shipped 5 days later by the seller. There is no way to leave a review, because by their policy if there were shipment issues, you can't leave a review for the product (I tried once, when I paid for a shelf that I really needed, and it took 2 weeks before the order was marked as cancelled, I left a review that I never received the product, it was deleted).
- Pxtl 4y ago
  AFAIK you can complain about delivery stuff under seller feedback, just not under product reviews.
  - XCSme 4y ago
    But that is private feedback, right? There is not even a rating for sellers, as on eBay, so buying from a 3rd party seller feels as risky as buying it from a random website. This doesn't even go to Amazon I think, it goes directly to the seller. EDIT: I stand corrected, you can leave public feedback on the seller's page (it's a bit hard to get there, you have to go through the sold product). That being said, refunding the non-delivered item doesn't seem to be possible without contacting support.
Pxtl 4y ago
Does it matter? Any shoddy goods on Amazon are immediately pulled from the store, re-stickered, and then reintroduced under a new brand name, possibly recycling the listing of a popular and successful product using the shit-of-Theseus trick.
- crazygringo 4y ago
  Sure, for no-name brands. But people also buy tons of brand-name stuff on Amazon, where this can't happen. I absolutely want to know the return rate for name-brand stuff.

kioleanu 4y ago

I’ve seen this exactly in an online shop in Romania. Then they tried refusing my return of a product citing a gross misinterpretation of the law. They caved in after I threatened invoking the great goods of consumer protection. Found out afterwards that they’re notorious for such gimmicks

sschueller 4y ago

The way they do warranty is really awesome and uncomplicated. Recently I had a set of headphones fail after ~1 year and all I had to do was find the item in my order history click a button, answer a few questions and in this case they just credited the amount to my account, didn't even have to send them back. Instructions told me to recycle them. There is a certain amount of trust in the system. However it can also go wrong. Once I sent a GPU for repair because a fan stopped working and it was still under warranty. Sadly they or their repair center marked it as a no fix, recycled the card and I was credited the amount I paid, sadly that was during the GPU crunch and a card that had similar performance was not available for even close that price. Replacing a fan I could have done my self but I thought a warranty claim would be the correct thing to do incase something else breaks.

lolc 4y ago
Can confirm, I had that happen with a cable. I filed a warranty claim and the response was "you dispose it, we credit it". When a second cable broke (oh no) they wanted me to send it in though.
- lobocinza 4y ago
  I had this experience with Logitech and Anker. Logitech actually ended up sending me two keyboards. First they sent me the same model but with a different layout (but still usable) and when I complained about the layout they sent me a more expensive model with the expected layout. No returns, few questions asked. Excellent RMA experience but that being said their mechanical keyboards AFAIK all have some sort of chronic issue and just aren't worth the price. Anker didn't ask me to return the earphones but refunded only 1/3 of what I paid (6m remaining in a 18m warranty). Mixed feelings about it though the experience was positive. On general I expect things to last a lot more than the warranted period. Anyway I still have the earphones and they still work (with reduced functionality) so let's say that I remained with a residual + the refunded amount.
fancazzista 4y ago
If you’re not home and the package doesn’t fit your mailbox, they will just leave it in front of the door of the apartment complex. Lived there for two and a half years and nothing was ever stolen.

j7ake 4y ago

My experience with returning on Galaxus was very positive. Nobody does it better!

senthil_rajasek 4y ago

Are the data used to generate this score and rate publicly available ? How does one verify they are true and not just another marketing trick.

Hamuko 4y ago

Finnish retailer Verkkokauppa.com has had something similar for a couple of years now. If I for example look up the 64 GB Apple iPad (Wi-Fi), I can see that it has 0.43% repairs and 0.17% returns, and that the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip3 has 0% returns and 2.17% repairs.

mordae 4y ago
Same here in Czechia for the major shops.

matsemann 4y ago

I actually don't care that much about these numbers, as they are not my problem. 5 year warranty by law (no matter what the maker gives you), makes it their risk if they make brittle products. Compared to in a market with little consumer protection laws (US), where what you buy is a uninformed gamble as to how it will last.

luckylion 4y ago
You don't want faulty equipment. Not because you won't get a replacement, but because you'll have faulty equipment and will have to spend time dealing with it.

greenthrow 4y ago

This is just straight up an ad. This should be removed.

faebi 4y ago
Not really, I don't work for Migros, Galaxus or Digitec. I'm just a happy customer who likes their moves to more transparency.
imp0cat 4y ago
Guerilla marketing at its best. ;) But then again, they only ship to Switzerland, no? So what do they gain from exposing the site on HN?
Annatar 4y ago
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Too 4y ago
Ad or not, I found this concept and the data very novel and interesting.
mikl 4y ago
Any product announcement is an ad. This happens to be an interesting innovation in online retail, quite on point for this site.
- greenthrow 4y ago
  I obviously disagree. Reviews are not a new thing. Yes this is a slightly different spin on it but ultimately it is less information than reviews since we don't know why things were returned.
  - mikl 4y ago
    I don’t see how you can equate this with reviews. Reviews are almost useless these days, because they can be (and are) spammed by bots and only a small minority of real buyers post reviews. But since returns are handled by Galaxus themselves, these numbers can’t be easily fudged. You’d have to actually buy the product and return it to negatively affect these scores.

jasmer 4y ago

Retail has long needed a shake up in the face of Amazon.

TomGullen 4y ago

New attack vector for black hat product manufacturers to abuse and compete on, hopefully it won't devolve into this level of competition though!

lolc 4y ago
Isn't that a metric you want manufacturers to compete on? How could they fake this?

sixhobbits 4y ago

I love Galaxus! Most online retailers could probably increase their revenue by xx% just by copying some of their patterns. - price history so you can see when sales are fake - one click "deliver to my closest branch and I will pick it up and pay there so I don't have to muck around with online payments" option - automatic high quality translation of all product information and reviews into all offered languages - simple downloads on order page for invoice and receipt And many other things. Some things are still annoying like they don't accept cards from some countries, but they get a lot right.

nix23 4y ago
They where much better before the Migros takeover, especially the two owners just wanted to make 10k/month the rest goes to the customer, for a short time we had better prices as..well ....whole EU. But still it's the best we have...
gesman 4y ago
Just spent 400 CHF at Galaxus, same day no charge delivery. Ho hassles.
ajsnigrutin 4y ago
> - one click "deliver to my closest branch and I will pick it up and pay there so I don't have to muck around with online payments" option I've started using this as much as possible, especially during christmas. You find something, "in stock", supposed to be delivered the next day or a day after, you order, then nothing one day, two days, three days, then you call, "yeah, it's still with the distributer, it'll be ready tomorrow", two more days pass, you call again, want a refund, they "cannot refund now", because the product is supposedly in the mail already, then you wait, christmas goes by, and around 15. january you get a call, that they cannot get the item you wanted, and try to upsell some either more expensive or worse option. Now I just order for physical pickup and "pay there" option.. and if it's not there, cancelling is easy, because they don't have your money yet, and they cannot lie about the item being already sent.
- smcl 4y ago

rrgok 4y ago

Even tough I like this feature. The title is misleading. It doesn't show the return rate of the product you are seeing. Example, Go here, randomly chosen https://www.digitec.ch/en/s1/product/yamaha-rx-v4a-52-channels-av-receiver-14005877 https://www.digitec.ch/en/s1/product/yamaha-rx-v4a-52-channe... And then scroll down and click warranty and then click "Detailed view", it says > How often does a product of this brand in the «AV Receiver» category have a defect within the first 24 months? This doesn't mean what the title says, right? I'm not a native english speaker, but I hope my reading skill is not that bad. I read it like: Yamaha return scores in "AV Reciever". If Yamaha had 100 product in "AV Reciever", it doesn't say almost nothing to me regarding the Yamaha RX-V4A I'm seeing. It could be that all 3% (example number) defect are Yamaha RX-V4A, or completely 3 (assuming Yamaha has 100 different products) different products.

rippercushions 4y ago
Identifying a "product" isn't as straightforward as it seems. Large retailers insist (and get) custom product codes from major manufacturers, which are just a different code slapped onto the same box, but accomplish the goal of making price comparisons impossible. And then you've got more legitimate reasons for different codes, like the same physical product ships with 27 different types of power plugs, warranty leaflets etc for various countries.
sureglymop 4y ago
Click on "Returns" instead of "Warranty".
- rrgok 4y ago
  It says almost the same: "How often is a product of this brand in the «XXXX» category returned"... It doesn't says how often the product I'm seeing is returned. But A product of the brand BBBB in the category XXXX is returned. I don't know, it is still a useful metric nonetheless. But it is still a misleading title.

stabbles 4y ago

The largest shareholder in Digitec Galaxus AG is Migros [1], which is a cooperative federation with more than 2 million members. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Migros https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Migros

jibcage 4y ago
It thrills me to pieces seeing Migros and Galaxus on here. I wish there was something remotely similar to Migros in the US.
- Zi2JDrgLmx6J2t 4y ago
  Terrible white-label groceries? Don't you guys have Trader Joe's for this purpose?
  - archon810 4y ago
    Confused by this comment. Trader Joe's is universally loved for its products, including groceries.

petodo 4y ago

Is this really worth article? Czech online shops publish reliability of products for years. 2nd biggest shows reliability, for instance iphone 12 has 99% https://www.czc.cz/apple-iphone-12-128gb-green/301129/produkt https://www.czc.cz/apple-iphone-12-128gb-green/301129/produk... the biggest shop does inverse how many (1%) used warranty https://m.alza.cz/iphone-12-64gb-cerna-d6216436.htm https://m.alza.cz/iphone-12-64gb-cerna-d6216436.htm this is worth checking before buying something because 97% reliability is for instance extremely bad compared to 99%, you are 3 times more likely to get faulty piece there is also monopolistic price comparison website heureka.cz where you can check price history years back, compare all shops and set price tracking with notification covering pretty much all online shops

david927 4y ago
Wait... are you saying Jara Cimrman did it first?!
- petodo 4y ago
  well he was born in Vienna, so not sure that would count
roesel 4y ago
This might be true, but both czc and alza have much to learn from digitec/galaxus regarding their website useability/cleanliness/etc. Alza nowadays is closer to Aliexpress than anything else with their endless dark patterns/spam/clutter. I wish we had something like Digitec/Galaxus in Czechia. Mironet is probably the closest, but their product range is limited and they're still not quite there.
- petodo 4y ago
  honestly i don't care about website design at all, I just go to heureka, find which shop had lowest price with shipping and is well established and then just click buy after redirecting, can't imagine looking for something directly on particular website and be loyal to some shop and not to my wallet, only reason I'm willing to pay slightly more for Softcom or Datart is they are next to my home so no need shipping and can use easy return/RMA, but if price difference is more than cost of return shipping, them I just choose cheapest (non shady) option (and for the record I almost never buy from CZC and especially Alza, which is like the most expensive shop among the big ones)

jjcm 4y ago

I think this is great, and it serves both the interests of galaxus and the user. The user will pick things that have less returns, and in the process galaxus will (hopefully) have to field less returns as well.

glanzwulf 4y ago

That's a great policy. I've used them a couple of times recently and was very impressed, now I might just use them even more.

bbojan 4y ago

Product categorization on Galaxus is the best I've seen so far. Light years ahead compared to e.g. Amazon.

r2b2 4y ago

I'd love to see re-purchase delay[0] and re-purchase rate[1] as well. Useful looking at multiple highly rated products and products that you go through more quickly (Eg. many bathroom supplies). -- [0] Time between a customer's purchase and re-purchase of a product. [1] Percent of original buyers that buy again.

quotehelp1829 4y ago
Hi r2b2! I'm sorry to address you like this, but I believe you to be a creator of Owlmail.io service and on website there is no contact information for the site, also no contact information on your profile and no direct-messaging feature on HN. So here's a super off-topic message - sorry!! I can't create account, simply nothing happens when I enter my email address and click "Next" or hit Enter key and so on and such. As Firefox Relay is not available in my country I was hoping to try your service. I have few more questions about Owlmail so I would appreciate if you could let me know if there is a more appropriate channel for asking those. If I'm mistaken or you'd rather not engage like this - apologies!