Earlier this week, I ordered a camera lens on Galaxus and received it shipped like this, with zero bubble wrap or paper or anything else – just the lens’s box floating around in a larger box, which is probably worse than if the outer box hadn’t been there at all: https://i.imgur.com/DYudO5W.jpeg

Worried that it might have sustained damage during shipping, I conducted some testing on it (within my abilities), and as far as I can tell, the lens performs just fine, but it still left me with a sour taste so I wrote to Galaxus’s support to ask them if they could at least package them more carefully in the future.

Their response didn’t really reassure me, though, rather the opposite. They basically told me that this was outside of their control since the packaging is largely automated and they don’t add bubble wrap for environmental reasons as they are in the process of switching to 100% cardboard packaging.

They ship a precision optical instrument costing 2000 CHF (all right, 1700.- after discounts) and skimp on any sort of cushioning (a few grams of plastic or paper, since most of it would be air – by design) for environmental reasons? 😵‍💫 This strikes me as grossly negligent and I don’t think they have their priorities straight. (Even from an environmental standpoint, have they taken into account the impact of damaged products possibly going to waste and replacements needing to be shipped?)

This makes me not want to buy any more fragile/expensive items from them again (a complete “boycott” would probably inconvenience me more than them), except maybe with flash delivery.

Has this happened to anyone else? Am I overreacting? I don’t think I am, but maybe a reality check wouldn’t be the worst thing.

by spider-mario

10 comments

  1. Usually packets from Galaxus are either tightly packed or padded. In your case, it looks incidental, but I’d definitely have complained.

  2. Buy it at an other provider. Galaxus/Digitec has gotten to big, they can come up with some BS excuse (like the environmental one) why they didn’t package it correctly…

  3. I received a Galaxus package just this week. computer screen in a box inside a larger box with lots of… bubble wrap (well “air cushions” more like).

  4. Ime they’ve always used paper for padding. Maybe there was a communication hurdle between the support and you as they don’t use bubble wrap, but a different material.

  5. I got a small (tiny) glass bottle in a letter. No padding whatsoever. Torn and all. Packaging is getting shit at galaxus.

  6. Not the best packaging, but to be fair this should still be fine. Normaly these lenses are cushioned inside or are inside a travel case, maybe even both.

  7. I once tried ordering a ceramic flower pot from galaxus. It arrived unpadded, and obviously broken. I complained, they sent a new one. Slightly more padded this time, but still broken. I complained again. Then they went bonkers with the padding but at least it finally arrived in one piece. Great memories.

  9. Maybe it is already protected in the original package? From manufacturer side, they should be already taking care of it.

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