Migros subsidiaries Galaxus and Digitec threatened?

Swisscom and Coop have founded an E-Commerce start-up to launch an online retail platform next year. Is this threatening the platforms Galaxus and Digitec? What can we expect?

Experts from Inside-It.ch speculate that the new online platform will be somewhat like Galaxus. Other sources revealed that Swisscom and Coop are launching a platform like amazon, where Swiss customers and retailers will be connected. Fact is the new online platform has been approved by the competition committee (Weko) and will be launched in 2016.

For this joint-venture Coop has founded the company Eos Commerce AG.  Swisscom is contributing 50% to the project. According to the commercial register the board of director consists of the chief-retail and chief-fiancial officer from coop and the chief of Interndiscout, the electronic retailer in Switzerland that belongs to the coop group.

Coop and Swisscom chairman Hansueli Losli (Keystone/Georgios Kefalas, 2011)

How come Swisscom and Coop are now collaborating whereas Swisscom is also partnering with the biggest competitor Migros? Swisscom and Coop have a prominent connection: they share their chairman Hansueli Losli.

However the platform will be in detail, Migros is likely to lose some of its market share with its biggest competitor moving into the online retail market.