End of story for Switch: stores to become Hubside.Store

Switch, the Apple reseller that has been the subject of negative publicity in recent months, is disappearing from the Belgian market. The stores will be converted to the French Hubside.Store brand, which belongs to the same group.

Unhappy consumers

Switch’s 21 Belgian stores will soon be replaced by branches of Hubside.Store, a French chain specialised in new and refurbished multimedia. Their owner, Indexia Group, wants to concentrate on one single brand, according to an internal memo that reached RTL Info.

This decision could have something to do with negative reports about Switch in recent months: consumer organisation Test-Achats has received hundreds of complaints from unhappy consumers who were tricked into taking out an insurance policy. The financial markets authority FSMA subsequently banned the Apple retailer from selling insurance products on the Belgian market. Hubside.store entered the Belgian market in 2021 with high ambitions. The chain wanted to open twenty new stores last year, but so far it has only four: in Louvain-La-Neuve, Tournai and Brussels (2). This year, the group wants to move into Flanders and open a total of twenty more stores. By the end of the year, the group aims to have 200 points of sale in Europe.