How likely is it that a product will break down during the warranty period? And if a warranty claim does arise: how long will it take for the warranty claim to be resolved? These are factors that can influence a purchase decision, but are hardly known. Digitec Galaxus now wants to change this, and is leading the way by displaying the return rate, the warranty case rate and the warranty case duration.

Under "Return rate" you can see how often products of a brand in the respective category have been returned in the last 12 months. For example, customers have returned 2.4 percent of all Samsung TVs purchased from Galaxus or Digitec in the last 12 months. Digitec Galaxus shows how often products of a brand in the respective category had a defect in the first 24 months after purchase under "Warranty case rate". PCs from the Medion brand, for example, become a warranty case in almost 6.4 percent of all cases within two years, while the rate for Apple computers is 0.8 percent. Under "Warranty case duration", customers can see how long it takes on average for a product of a brand in the respective category to be returned to the owner in the event of a warranty case. The ranking also includes data from the last 24 months.

The Digitec Galaxus portfolio also includes numerous bicycles and bike accessories. For example, with the Early Rider Belter children's bike, you can see what the transparency data looks like by unfolding the "Returns" and "Warranty" tabs. The Shimano deflation kit or these Shimano pedals also provide information on returns and warranty cases with a comparative ranking to competitor products.

However, there is not transparency data for all products. Digitec Galaxus only takes into account data from the last 24 months and only shows the rate from 300 comparable products sold. "In addition, we wait a month before displaying data when completely new products go on sale. Before that, the information would not be meaningful enough and individual cases would distort the figures too much," explains Alex Hämmerli, Senior PR Manager at the online department store.

The returns rate is also not visible for all products. "We only take into account the data from the last 12 months and only show the rate for 150 or more comparable products sold. As the informative value is not good enough before then and individual cases would distort the figures too much," Hämmerli continues on the transparency offensive.

The transparency data is not yet perfect. It can happen that Digitec Galaxus compares apples with pears. One example: Motorex is included in the ranking for the Shimano bleed set, although the Swiss lubricant expert does not offer a bleed set.

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