alt Hacker News> in Switzerland there is a thing, that if a product or service has the name "Swiss" in its name, then it can be sold for any price regardless of quality
That's just basic marketing. You'll see that in most countries, I don't believe that it is unique to Switzerland.
For example: in the US you'll see many products that say "made in America" on the box. Those will likely outsell competing products, even if those are cheaper and better quality still.
And similarly: if you try to sell the "made in America" product in a different country it'll likely by outsold by the "made in [country]" products there.
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The cachet of "Swiss" products is a lot higher than US. (Whether this is merited is another question entirely)
Not really.
In France we have a French brand of bikes, from the sports retailer Intersport, called Nakamura...
They actually hide the fact it's a local brand, let people think it's a Japanese brand, to suggest it's higher quality.
"made in" is completely different. A higher price is justified by supporting Americans in some way, rather than somewhere offshore.
This is more like McDonald's putting a maple leaf in their logo in Canada. It changes nothing but, apparently, Canadians like it more (I frequently watch Canadian television and non-canadian companies are frequently adding a leaf somewhere in the advertising).
I feel it's a little more extreme for swiss companies though, especially outside the country. My aunt who works in Rome in the tourism industry told us of a local company that had 'swiss' in the name, simply because of the positive connotation, even when they don't seem to have any relation to the country.
It's why I feel wary of making business with any company with the word 'swiss' in it's name