Collective punishment: the innocent victims of Galaxus’s big ratings reset
31/7/2026
Translation: Katherine Martin
Galaxus and Digitec recently wiped 380,000 ratings from its shops. The reason? To ensure that only customers who’ve actually bought a product are able to rate it. In addition to removing fake reviews and hate posts, the move has unfortunately hit many genuine ratings.
For once, the term «collective punishment» is unfortunately accurate. Following the actions of a few wrongdoers, Galaxus and Digitec now only allow product ratings from verified buyers. As part of the rule change, 380,000 unverified reviews have been removed from the shops. This mass deletion, however, has claimed some innocent casualties. Here are the categories these reviews fall into; some of them won’t be easy for the Community to stomach.
Farewell, fake reviews!
First, let’s take a look at the bad apples. According to the most recent internal data analysis, 36 brands on Galaxus and Digitec featured a majority of product ratings stemming from non-buyers. The analysis took into account all brands with at least 200 reviews. By way of comparison, Galaxus has sold products from over 50,000 brands so far this year. The 36 brands collectively received nearly 19,000 ratings unconnected to a purchase. Strikingly, in the case of five brands, 90 per cent of ratings were posted by users who hadn’t bought the product in question. «We suspect a lot of these are fakes,» says Thimo Schuster, who is leading Galaxus and Digitec’s ratings reset. In the most extreme example, only 32 out of 2,093 product ratings definitely originated from buyers – a measly 1.5 per cent. Looking at these brands, three patterns emerged:
- Most of the ratings were submitted without a written review, i.e. with a star rating, but no text underneath. Often, the ratings stemmed from accounts that had never been used to place an order and had no recorded postal address.
- The handful of verified ratings were often negative. One underwear set had a huge rating disparity: for every 200 five-star reviews with no text and no purchase, there were just 2 two-star reviews with text and a verified purchase.
- Among the few unverified five-star reviews, some of the text was identical. A lot of them were also noticeably short. Here’s an example of two ratings for a pair of earrings.
Galaxus has confronted the people behind the offending brands. For legal reasons, they’ve been kept anonymous in this article. The managing director of a company that sells labels and label guns seemed remorseful in his response: «As a small supplier, we were under a great deal of pressure from the competition and from within the company to make sales,» he said. He’d written between three and five reviews for each product in his range so that they’d «have a realistic chance of being seen by customers». He added, «Looking back, I realise this was a mistake – even though I stand by the quality of our products.»
A marketplace seller with two brands on Galaxus linked to over 95 per cent unverified ratings insisted he’d never manipulated reviews. «We also sell our products through other platforms, such as Zalando,» said the CEO. He said he suspected customers may have bought their underwear, sleep masks or suspenders on another platform, then rated them on Galaxus.
When a German supplier of «premium» own-brand sport and lifestyle products was challenged on its ratings, it didn’t provide respond. The CEO of a company selling budget-friendly jewellery on Galaxus said fake ratings didn’t align with its «business practices».
Taking the wind out of product testers’ sails
The ratings reset has also hit major corporations’ product testing platforms. Companies like Nestlé, Philips or Procter & Gamble (links in German) gift products to testers, who are then expected to write reviews in return. «These reviews often had a machine-generated feel to them, as product testers have to follow certain guidelines,» says Eveline Jordi, who leads the Community Team at Galaxus and Digitec. «For instance, they always have to write out the product name in full, and are encouraged to mention it several times.»
Both Nestlé and Philips ignored queries from Galaxus about their product ratings. However, Procter & Gamble (P&G), the world’s largest consumer goods company, known for brands such as Ariel, Pampers and Gillette, did come back with a response. According to a P&G spokesperson, product tests are often organised «around product launches», providing initial feedback on user experiences. «Positive reviews give products a head start,» says Galaxus’s Thimo Schuster.
The P&G spokeswoman added that the company doesn’t give testers guidelines on how highly to rate products or the tone or wording of their reviews. She also pointed out that P&G’s partner company, which posts reviews on retailers’ websites, doesn’t filter out negative reviews. In addition, each review needs to be marked as «incentivised».
Nestlé and Philips’ product testers supposedly post their reviews online themselves. Philips, for example, requires testers to share product experiences on three platforms defined by the company.
Genuine criticism, but not of the product
Now that the rating guidelines on Galaxus and Digitec have changed, criticism that isn’t directly aimed at products is being filtered out. Infamously, Starlink satellite internet receivers on Galaxus and Digitec boasted numerous so-called reviews posted by customers keen to vent their frustration with tycoon Elon Musk. Nearly half of the recent ratings of Starlink products were posted by users who hadn’t purchased them.
Customers also used product ratings to sound off about delivery delays for game consoles and the astronomical prices of graphics cards. The proportion of unverified reviews of graphics cards from Nvidia or AMD recently topped 20 per cent. «These fiery comments would’ve been fine in our forum,» says Thimo. «But they weren’t much help to customers who were trying to decide if the product was worth buying.»
Spoof ratings
Many jokesters are no longer able to get their kicks on Digitec or Galaxus. Tongue-in-cheek reviews of products such as expensive watch winders and cigar boxes may have inspired a few chuckles, but they also led to misunderstandings.
Product ratings posted as part of April Fools’ jokes or other pranks have been removed, including ones prompted by the likes of F-35A stealth bombers and air guitars.
Gift recipients and Community heroes
Now here’s the really sad part. Since the ratings reset, thousands of well-intentioned product ratings – including those posted by people who’d received products as gifts – have been deleted. This includes 60 per cent of experience voucher ratings and 40 per cent of necklace ratings.
What’s more, Galaxus and Digitec are home to quite a few Community heroes who share reviews of products they’ve bought elsewhere:
To all the PneuRugelers, jackra1ns and Phil Finishers out there, we’re sorry you’ve fallen victim to our collective punishment! We hope you’ll continue helping our Community decide which products to buy by sharing your opinions.
Header image: Manuel Wenk
Alex Hämmerli
Senior Public Relations Manager
Alex.Haemmerli@digitecgalaxus.chAt Digitec and Galaxus, I’m in charge of communication with journalists and bloggers. Good stories are my passion – I am always up to date.
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