Aldi and Lidl are blasting through other super market chains with their low cost, high quality goods. If there were ever perfect case studies for usurping incumbents in a sharply competitive market Aldi and Lidl are it.
They dramatically reduce their range which cuts inventory storage. You'll never seem more than one or two instances of the same item. i.e. theres only one type of can of baked beans.
You're expected to pack bags away from the cashier so they can get to billing the next customer and not wasting time packing bags.
They ensure theres always a little bit of a queue so the cashiers are constantly scanning if not they close the till.
Also way back when ALDI didn't even have barcode scanners to save money. There was a person typing all of the items manually into the computer with some 4-6 digit code when you checked out. It was crazy as they were incredibly fast.
Wait, there are supermarkets that don't have that? How does it work? Do people just leave the shopping carts standing around on the parking lot? Not cynical, geniunely wondering how that works.
Anyway, afaik virtually all supermarkets in Europe have that system. I'm pretty sure Aldi didn't invent it.
(Supermarkets also sell branded versions of the fake coins for customers too accustomed to arriving with no spare change for a trolley)
Aldi's system certainly encourages "correct" behavior, but I'd rather not have to take the cart all the way back to get my coin. Especially in a parking lot the size of the typical Costco or Walmart. I'd just hand the cart over to the next arriving customer so I can leave quicker.
In Chicago, some places have a little square outside the main entrance with posts too narrow to fit a shopping cart through, or an "invisible fence" system that locks up the wheels if the carts are brought past a certain line. In that case you have to bring your car around to the loading area and the cart always stays inside the perimeter.
That jimmying the coin operated locking mechanism with part of a tin of fish is considered semi-common knowledge leads me to suspect Britain's trolly theft problem is endemic!
I've also bought a tin of sardines. Just in case.
More often these days, they just put an electronic wheel lock on the front wheel to disable the cart when it leaves the lot.
I must admit that the first thing I did after observing this new system was to test whether the chain was long enough to "lock" the cart to itself and get the quarter back without returning the cart. Try it for yourself ;)
Not with the ones I've seen in NL, unless you put one cart on top of the other and turn it upside down. Indeed, that's a bit of work, lifting one cart (or pushing both carts flat on their side).
And the quarter is somewhat annoying at times, but regular shoppers often make sure they have on in their car. In addition, there are often folks willing to trade a quarter or make change and the cashiers will often make change as well. If all else fails, they are usually located in locations with other things nearby, so you can buy something smallish and be on your way with the shopping.
Quality wise they beat the other supermarkets by a long way, except Waitrose or Co Op, on most things. There are exceptions, Aldi cheese is awful.
And the reverse happens as well, when the line reduces another announcement will state that the checkout is closing and customers should not approach that checkout.
I'm always amazed at the little things Aldi does to make their process even more efficient.
One trick that I find helpful: When in the queue, leave some space to the person before you, to make the queue appear longer and thus incentivize the cashier to open the next checkout.
Yes, and no. In the UK, I'm glad that Aldi and Lidl are challenging the larger supermarkets, but I would hate to see a situation where a race to the bottom on price means consumers have less choice across the entire supermarket sector. By choice I don't mean 20 brands of ketchup, I mean - to give just one example - a wide variety of herbs and spices for instance. (In my local Aldi and Lidl, they rarely have more than ten.)
Plus, UK supermarkets are a bit more flexible in catering to local shoppers. You'll often find South Asian/African/Chinese/Carribean/Polish goods stocked in the supermarket to reflect the local population.
Also, the discount supermarkets don't always treat suppliers any better than their larger counterparts. Last year, milk farmers in the UK protested against supermarkets that were paying them less than the cost of producing milk. Lidl and Aldi were among the supermarkets implicated. (To their credit, both Lidl and Aldi and other supermarkets agreed to raise the price they paid for milk as a result of the farmer's protest). Irish farmers also protested against Lidl and Aldi's low milk prices last year too.
In Germany, where Aldi and Lidl dominate the supermarket sector, there is far less product choice in the supermarket sector because of course the key to their low prices and profitability is fewer stock lines. I hope the supermarket landscape in the UK doesn't turn into something similar.
In Germany Aldi is known as the hardest negotiator and the price setter for basic food. When they lowered the milk price by one fourth to 46 cents recently (which is way too low to cover production cost) all other chains responded within a few hours for their store-brands.
Typically you can buy most items available in an Aldi store for the same price in other supermarkets (value brands).
They tried this in my area maybe last year. Aldi dropped the price of milk and some other stuff to ridiculous prices. It went from around $2 to $0.60-0.70 at Aldi with Walmart, Kroger, etc following by dropping to $0.99. Aldi ships milk on racks with little else in their dairy selling that fast. Competitors, that I'm aware, all hand stock milk with tons of other products selling fast. Employees were exhausted from wave after wave hitting the milk section and so much milk stored that they couldnt get to other products. Convenience store owners were also posing as regular customers to buy basket loads of it over course of a day despite policy of 2 per customer. Results were so devastating to big players they backed off and didn't price war Aldi again in my area. So far. Milk went back up.
I thought it was hilarious they'd even try given they're "as much overhead as possible" organizations going against an essentially "zero overhead" organization. What did they think would happen? Lol...
I don't know about the UK, but in Ireland Aldi and Lidl are proliferating across the country. The growth is so extreme, they're hiring grads at €60k plus an Audi in order to train them up as shop managers. I mentioned case study because they've taken a fundamentally different approach and it's working. Their low cost structures across supply chain, product base, building construction and shop design are how they're carrying out this coup.
they also sell really odd stuff at times seemingly totally random too. Once I found bird baths there and another week an four post canopy
They buy those items in large amounts very cheap. People love those "bargains" and can't stop to buy it, even if they don't need it at the moment. And they are not randomly, they are seasonal and they do repeat every year. In Germany you get a weekly flyer for those bargain items in your letterbox and I would guess that it is the most read "publication" in Germany.