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His­to­ry

From a tra­di­tion­al busi­ness to a high-tech logis­tics com­pa­ny

The his­tor­i­cal ori­gins of the Swiss mail order cen­ter date back to the 19th cen­tu­ry.
Ini­tial­ly found­ed as a pro­duc­tion and trad­ing com­pa­ny for tex­tiles, the pre­de­ces­sor com­pa­ny “Ack­er­mann Ver­sand­haus AG” expe­ri­enced its hey­day from the 1960s to the 1990s.
The con­struc­tion and com­mis­sion­ing of the high-per­for­mance logis­tics cen­ter in 1997 laid the foun­da­tion for today’s SVZ Schweiz­er Ver­sandzen­trum AG.
Thanks to entre­pre­neur­ial spir­it, fore­sight and vision­ary ideas, SVZ became what it is today — a high­ly tech­no­log­i­cal and lead­ing Swiss ser­vice provider with full-ser­vice logis­tics.

1900

The first mail order com­pa­ny in Switzer­land

The milliner and tai­lor Johann Acher­mann found­ed a fac­to­ry for pro­cess­ing and fin­ish­ing tex­tiles in 1843.
The busi­ness is con­tin­ued by the fam­i­ly until 1900, when two of his grand­sons open “Gebrüder Ack­er­mann — Fab­rika­tion und Han­del mit Tuch­waren” on Bahn­hof­s­trasse in Entlebuch.
This com­pa­ny is entered in the com­mer­cial reg­is­ter as the first mail-order com­pa­ny in Switzer­land.
The two broth­ers start ship­ping tex­tile goods.
The expan­sion of mail-order activ­i­ties is facil­i­tat­ed by the open­ing of the Lucerne — Lang­nau — Berne rail­road line in 1875 and the rapid expan­sion of the postal ser­vice.

1947

Ack­er­mann moves to its cur­rent loca­tion at Entlebuch rail­road sta­tion

A phase of expan­sion begins with the con­struc­tion and occu­pa­tion of a new ware­house and sales out­let.
At this time, 40 employ­ees are already work­ing for the mail order com­pa­ny.
The logis­ti­cal con­nec­tion to the rail­road tracks is of cen­tral impor­tance until the end of the cen­tu­ry.

1955 to 1970

Expan­sion in three stages and dou­bling of capac­i­ty

The mail order busi­ness expe­ri­enced its first hey­day in the 1960s and 1970s.
The expan­sion of the postal logis­tics net­work and, above all, the eco­nom­ic upturn after the Sec­ond World War allowed shop­ping from the cat­a­log to flour­ish.
In 1960, “Gebrüder Ack­er­mann” is renamed “Ack­er­mann Ver­sand­haus AG”.
Dur­ing this phase, sales increase from 1.5 to over 60 mil­lion Swiss francs.

1971

Man­age­ment buy-out

The broth­ers Karl and Alfred Ack­er­mann sell their shares in the com­pa­ny to a com­mit­ted trio of man­agers with a clear vision: to trans­form the Ack­er­mann mail order com­pa­ny from the num­ber 3 at the time to the num­ber 1 in Switzer­land.
High­ly indebt­ed at high inter­est rates but with good ideas, the young man­agers suc­cess­ful­ly launched the “turn­around” mis­sion.
A cat­a­log in book for­mat, sales on account instead of pre­pay­ment, inter­na­tion­al pro­cure­ment and prod­uct range diver­si­fi­ca­tion form the new basis for the sub­se­quent sec­ond hey­day, which lasts until the late 1990s.

1982

Takeover of Ack­er­mann Ver­sand­haus AG by Cor­neliu Sfin­tesco

From 1982, Cor­neliu Sfin­tesco becomes the sole own­er of the Ack­er­mann mail order com­pa­ny.
Under his lead­er­ship, Ack­er­mann becomes the largest mail-order com­pa­ny in Switzer­land and is present in all parts of the coun­try with its own chain of stores.

1991

Takeover of the sawmill and plan­ing mill “ECO AG” by Ack­er­mann Ver­sand­haus AG

The Ack­er­mann mail order com­pa­ny con­tin­ues to expand.
Over 220 mil­lion in sales are now gen­er­at­ed with 600 employ­ees and 2.5 mil­lion parcels are sent to Swiss house­holds every year.

Due to the con­tin­u­ing expan­sion, the sawmill and plan­ing mill “ECO AG” is tak­en over in 1991, with ply­wood pro­duc­tion giv­ing way to a grand vision as ear­ly as 1993.

1994

Ground­break­ing cer­e­mo­ny for the con­struc­tion of the Swiss dis­tri­b­u­tion cen­ter

The vision of “Ack­er­mann, the mail order com­pa­ny for the Alpine region”, in which south­ern Ger­many, Aus­tria, north­ern Italy and east­ern France are to be served and sup­plied from Entlebuch in addi­tion to Switzer­land, gives the go-ahead for the largest project in the com­pa­ny’s his­to­ry — the con­struc­tion of a high-per­for­mance mail order cen­ter cost­ing 120 mil­lion Swiss francs.

1997

Open­ing of Europe’s most mod­ern logis­tics cen­ter

After three years of con­struc­tion, Europe’s most mod­ern logis­tics cen­ter is offi­cial­ly opened.
A mile­stone in the (par­tial­ly) auto­mat­ed pro­cess­ing of ship­ping ser­vices.

With the mail-order com­pa­ny Charles Veil­lon SA, the num­ber 2 in Switzer­land at the time can also be acquired, which also relo­cates its mail-order activ­i­ties to the Entlebuch site from 2004.
This increas­es the capac­i­ty uti­liza­tion of the facil­i­ties and improves prof­itabil­i­ty.

2001

Inde­pen­dent AG “SVZ Schweiz­er Ver­sandzen­trum AG”

In 2001, “SVZ Schweiz­er Ver­sandzen­trum AG” is found­ed as an inde­pen­dent logis­tics ser­vice provider, lay­ing the foun­da­tion for today’s renowned address for ful­fill­ment logis­tics.

Over the years, in addi­tion to the mail order com­pa­ny Veil­lon, which has since merged with Ack­er­mann, oth­er cus­tomers can also be acquired for mail order ser­vices.

2007

Sale of the Ack­er­mann brand

After the mail-order com­pa­ny Veil­lon ceased its mail-order activ­i­ties in 2005, Ack­er­mann was the last inde­pen­dent Swiss mail-order com­pa­ny to cease trad­ing in 2006.
The ear­li­er “No” to the EEA had fun­da­men­tal­ly changed the sit­u­a­tion and future prospects of mail order com­pa­nies in Switzer­land.
Pres­sure from oth­er Euro­pean coun­tries and the tech­no­log­i­cal leap trig­gered by the advent of the Inter­net made it impos­si­ble to oper­ate prof­itably.

The “Ack­er­mann” brand is tak­en over by Quelle AG Ger­many and lat­er by Quelle Aus­tria and still exists today.

From then on, “SVZ Schweiz­er Ver­sandzen­trum AG” focus­es exclu­sive­ly on ful­fill­ment logis­tics for third par­ties.
The first well-known cus­tomers are soon acquired and the com­pa­ny quick­ly estab­lish­es an excel­lent rep­u­ta­tion in the Swiss logis­tics land­scape thanks to its out­stand­ing ser­vice qual­i­ty and high lev­el of flex­i­bil­i­ty.

2010

Retro­fit of auto­mat­ed high-bay ware­house for small parts

The ini­tial suc­cess­es and grow­ing demand jus­ti­fy the invest­ment in a retro­fit of the exist­ing sys­tems after just three years.
In this con­text, the exist­ing small parts high-bay ware­house with its approx­i­mate­ly 230,000 con­tain­ers can be put back into oper­a­tion.
Var­i­ous sys­tems are dis­man­tled and con­vert­ed and new, flex­i­ble stor­age areas are cre­at­ed for the forth­com­ing rapid growth.

2021

Com­mis­sion­ing of new high-bay ware­house with 21,000 pal­let spaces

Eight years lat­er, the logis­tics depart­ment is already report­ing the first space prob­lems and so plan­ning begins for anoth­er mod­ern and effi­cient high-bay ware­house: a ful­ly auto­mat­ed high-bay pal­let ware­house with 21,000 pal­let spaces, 1,000 of which are direct­ly acces­si­ble via pick­ing sta­tions.
The ware­house has 8 pick­ing aisles spread over 2 lev­els and offers a total of 966 pick­ing sta­tions.
The build­ing can final­ly be put into oper­a­tion in 2021.
Anoth­er logis­ti­cal high­light of this size and flex­i­bil­i­ty.

2024

Part­ner for around 80 cus­tomers and employ­er for 80 employ­ees

Today, SVZ Schweiz­er Ver­sandzen­trum AG offers all-round care­free logis­tics with around 80 employ­ees and a high-tech infra­struc­ture at its Entlebuch site.
As a proud logis­tics part­ner to around 80 well-known cus­tomers from the e‑commerce, retail, con­sumer goods, cloth­ing and phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal sec­tors, SVZ Schweiz­er Ver­sandzen­trum AG process­es over 1,000,000 orders a year and stores around 80,000 dif­fer­ent items with a good 10,000,000 parts.

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