Last year, Aldi launched an advertising campaign announcing that a 200-gram organic salmon fillet would drop from 8.49 to 6.99 francs. And that was the price for a few months. It then dropped to 6.89 francs. But less than a year later, the same product was costing 7.45 francs. The State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) considers that advertising a price reduction as ‘long-lasting’ or ‘permanent’ and then raising prices may breach the Federal Act against Unfair Competition (UWG). Aldi has received a formal warning. SECO reserves the right to take legal action.
The supermarket’s response was the usual one: that food prices fluctuate in line with the market, and that the current price is still lower than the original one. All true. The legal issue is the word ‘permanently’ in the advert. In Swiss legal terms, this means without an expiry date, not ‘for a few months until it suits us to raise prices again’. It’s not just Aldi: a few months ago, SECO had already intervened with Coop and Migros over discount labels where the small print was almost invisible and the minimum purchase requirements were unclear. Coop has since changed its design.
This has direct practical implications for anyone shopping in Switzerland. Legal consumer protection does exist, but you need to know how to make use of it. If a supermarket advertises a special offer using terms such as ‘permanently cheaper’ or ‘final price’ and then raises the price, you can contact SECO via seco.admin.ch. It doesn’t automatically guarantee anything, but the organisation has real powers to investigate and demand changes. Most people are unaware that this channel exists, and many only discover it when it’s too late.
Aldi in Switzerland is a peculiar case. In Germany, it’s the benchmark for low prices. In Switzerland, however, it doesn’t quite fit the mould: more expensive than in Germany, cheaper than Migros, but with an aggressive advertising strategy that sometimes leads to this sort of friction with the authorities. The ‘permanently lowest price’ theory sounds great until the new price appears on the label.