It's getting more and more repulsive for me to have to shop at Migros. The shopping experience that used to exist is being replaced by shopping frustration. The Migros management seems to me to be the ultimate in unreasonableness. Example: For some time now, all visitors to Migros, for example in the Zurich-Kreuzplatz or Wädenswil branches, have been treated as potential shoplifters: Without showing a receipt, the barrier at the exit cannot be opened in order to leave the store. Shortly after this nonsense took hold, Migros refrained from issuing customers with a receipt unless the customer explicitly requested one: either from the cashier or on the display at the payment station. So now someone who has not received a receipt is supposed to leave Migros by showing the receipt . . . Customers should download and print out the receipt on their computer at home. Migros is stealing my time and money. At Aldi, I am asked if I want the receipt. This is one of the reasons why I have fundamentally changed my shopping habits. I shop at Aldi first for everything I need and can find there. I only buy the rest at Migros, which I find increasingly unappealing. And I loudly announce this to the Migros staff in question, who are not responsible for this, but also often shake their heads at the decisions made at Limmatplatz. I want them to know that I, as a customer, don't like any of this. The company is similarly idiotic when it comes to random checks on the purchases of those customers who scan the products themselves and then pay for them: Even customers who have not been accused of not having scanned anything in a single random check since this option was introduced - in other words, for years - are repeatedly subjected to useless checks. You can't run a business in a more idiotic way. Meanwhile, there is a database from which this fact should emerge. The conversion of till receipts and vouchers for purchases to mourning paper - which Migros management mendaciously pretends is blue - means that older customers with eye problems are only able to read these documents with difficulty because there is no contrast between the white paper and black lettering. Here too: What kind of idiots choose such solutions? Also idiotic is the long-standing tendency to offer "weekend bangers" for the weekdays Thursday to Sunday (where is Migros open on Sunday except at the airport?). Gottlieb Duttweiler, with whom I worked a lot decades ago in my capacity as a journalist at his daily newspaper "Die Tat", pointed out at the time that customer frequency and store sales on the first days of the week, i.e. Monday to Wednesday, are much lower than those on the last days of the week. In order to steer customer behavior towards the weaker days, he invented the "free days": reimbursement of the amount of the till receipt of the day with the lowest turnover of the month. Today's management reinforces the weekend frequency with its bangers, whereby it must be noted that in many cases these are mere bait offers that do not work and disappoint the customer: If someone can only come on Saturday, they have to risk not finding any reduced goods. This is what happened to me recently with olive oil from Italy. This week (28.11.-3.12.239) Migros has the French mineral water Contrex on special offer (promotion). But to buy it, it is no longer enough to go to the nearest Migros store, as the product is not available there. I live on the Forch. When I look on the Migros website to see which stores I have to go to in order to buy Contrex, not only are all the nearby stores out of stock; even the 3M in Uster or Meilen, about 15 km away, report on Tuesday evening that there is no Contrex in stock. If I want to order Contrex online so that it is delivered to my door, my order is limited to a maximum of 3x 12 bottles; that's 30 francs. If I then also want to order the tonic water online, which is useful for preventing calf cramps at night and is currently also on promotion (6x 1 liter at 5.60 instead of 7.95), I am told that this product is only available in stores - but of course not in all of them. The product used to be available in Zumikon, but now I have to drive to Uster, where there are only 8 units available; by the time I get there, they may already be sold; in Meilen, it is not in stock at all on Tuesday evenings. How am I supposed to reach the minimum order value of 100 francs for the online order? Idiots everywhere. Just as idiotic was the discontinuation of the specialty plantain pastilles; an excellent herbal candy specialty that managed to cure a sore throat if it was quickly applied to the throat at the beginning. From one day to the next, it was no longer available. This was a product that was developed under the leadership of Fritz Hunziker senior in Dietikon, a friend of Duttweiler's; the company seems to have been taken over by the Richterich family in the meantime; I don't know whether it is the same company that makes Ricola. The tendency to sell Lindt chocolate and Persil in Migros is also a misery. The inexpensive Giandor gift packs, for example of Napolitains of the Frey brand, have disappeared; I am now supposed to buy massively more expensive goods from Kilchberg or Henkel due to worldwide super advertising, which I don't do. In the meantime, I have also switched to products that I find at Aldi or Lidl. I confess it openly: I recently looked for my Migros share certificate, which I paid for at the time - as one of the very few; most people received it as a gift from Migros at the time - with 10 francs; it therefore bears a round stamp with the large letter B in a circle, and I wondered whether I should send it back and ask for the 10 francs to be paid out.

Migrol's involvement in cooperation with the Azerbaijani government thugs responsible for the war against Armenia at the petrol stations is a completely different story. Thinking and political responsibility are no longer part of the Migros management's basic equipment. Their tendency to nominate only agreeable people for election to the ranks of the delegates' assemblies is having an effect. There no longer seem to be any internal critics who raise their voices in good time and draw attention to dangers to the Migros spirit. The last straw is yet to come: the Migros magazine will no longer be a newspaper written by responsible journalists. Marketing is taking control of the former "bridge builder". It will soon be easy to do without the Postille. What can the former Migros child do in the face of such derailments and the disappointments they cause? You have to rely on the store, because Coop or Volg are even more expensive than Migros, which has also become expensive. The only weapon I have left is to buy everything I need from Aldi or Lidl and only buy the rest from Migros. You have to punish the fools by refusing to sell as much as possible. Come on! Follow me! Ludwig A. Minelli (91) Hans-Roelli-Strasse 14 8127 Forch Tel. 044 980 04 54