Migros buries social shopping platform Amigos after completion of test phase

As Amigos launched in April 2018The concept was new for Switzerland: Migros customers do other Migros customers a favor and shop for them. Customers can post their shopping list on the Amigos.ch website, a bringer accepts the order via the Amigos app, does the shopping at Migros and brings the ordered products to the customer's home. The focus of this "peer to peer" concept was the social idea of helping neighbors.

Important experience gained

The test took place in the Bern and Zurich regions and, according to Migros, met with lively interest right from the start. But it was also criticized. Philipp Zimmermann from Unia, for example, describes Amigos as "a kind of Uber of the retail trade" with regard to working conditions (Werbewoche.ch reported). The criticism continued. The question: Are the "bringers" of the Migros online store Amigos self-employed or employees of Migros?

However, demand developed positively during the test period. At the same time, Migros gathered feedback and experience on an ongoing basis. Following an evaluation of the first test phase, Migros began focusing on individual areas of Amigos that it wanted to develop further in spring 2019. The tests revealed that the possible further development of Amigos would have meant that it would have shifted significantly from a new type of social shopping platform in the sense of a neighborhood help to a conventional commercial shopping platform. This model would have contradicted the original social idea. Migros therefore decided not to introduce Amigos after the test phase.

"Although Amigos will not be introduced after the test phase, the project was not in vain for us," says Matthias Wunderlin, Head of the Marketing Department at the Federation of Migros Cooperatives, in a press release. "We have gained experience that is very valuable for us with regard to future projects."