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ThJ

Most of the stuff they're doing seems to be entirely commonplace for the supermarket chains we have here in Norway.

The coins for the carts.

Stacking crates instead of individual items.

Training every employee for everything (it's not uncommon to see a store manager operating the cash register).

Expecting customers to fill their own bags and charging for those bags.

Smaller selection.

The only unique part seems to be the tendency to promote the shop's own brand over name brands.

On a related note: Lidl tried and failed to get a foothold here in Norway with similar tactics. It didn't work. Perhaps because our mainstream store chains are already so similar to Lidl, except our domestic chains offer actual name brand products and the Lidl stores didn't, and I think that's why they failed. Also, people who are really desperate to save money can just go to Sweden to shop. It's not a very long drive.

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It helps if you just imagine that every large brick and mortar chain in the Nordic countries operates kind of like IKEA. Lots of self service, spartan shop interior, and also, since labour is expensive here and you can't fuck your employees over with low wages like you can elsewhere, store owners tend to want to cut down on the number of staff.

>>you can't fuck your employees over with low wages like you can elsewhere

Not all Nordic countries even have minimum wage laws (Sweden, Norway). I'm not sure how you were able to construct that observation.

There is no minimum wage, but salaries are bargained for via collective agreements. So everywhere but the smallest shops and temporary jobs you get paid a decent wage.

My god, aldi/lidl and ikea are the worst shops in europe. I can't imagine a country filled with the same awful shops

The Nordic countries are not big on service, because you're a big boy and can take care of yourself. The reason IKEA came from Sweden is because that's the attitude here. Shop clerks aren't there to be your servants. They are your equals. Foreigners often complain of the awful service they get here, but it's a deliberate part of the working culture.

>Shop clerks aren't there to be your servants. They are your equals.

I love that attitude. I've always felt a bit weird in very high end establishments where the staff are overly deferential.

> Foreigners often complain of the awful service they get here

In addition to your point, I think this also has something to do with people from Nordic countries being a less likely to smile at strangers than people from smiling cultures.

One time when I was the last customer to shop before closing (yes, our stores close over night) a store employee bagged my groceries while I payed for them. It felt extremely awkward and I felt embarrassed and didn't know what to do. So I just stood there, watching as somebody else packed my stuff, smiled, said thank you, and left feeling really weird. I don't know how other people do it regularly.

Hmm.. It is not that we dont care about service. It is more about what kind of service you can get. If you go to IKEA and say ”Hey, I am a student what is the best sofa for my budget?” they will help you find something without upselling you. If they cant help you find something they will usually refer you to OTHER stores. Service is more than just being a slave to the customer.

I've actually experienced much better service at aldi/hofer and ikea than at other stores in europe. Staff are very happy to help answer questions and track down hard to find items.

> On a related note: Lidl tried and failed to get a foothold here in Norway with similar tactics. It didn't work. Perhaps because our mainstream store chains are already so similar to Lidl, except our domestic chains offer actual name brand products and the Lidl stores didn't, and I think that's why they failed.

I don't think that sounds like the most likely reason. I have seen Lidl's arrival to Finland. And at least with respect to prices Norway and Finland are very similar, namely exorbitantly expensive if you compare to central Europe.

Also in Finland price competition did not use to be very fierce. They are only few players and it was an unwritten agreement that business is more comfortable to do without any price wars, consumers pay...

So when Lidl came there was massive pressure on suppliers not to sell to Lidl. If you sell to Lidl (with initially some 20-30 stores) you will not sell to us any longer (with many hundreds of stores). For several years Lidl had to ship nearly every product from central Europe. Which was not only expensive, but also were the products partly exotic to the consumers. For me as German living in Finland Lidl was better than the finest specialty shop, lots of products you could not buy anywhere else and very cheap. After a couple of years the supplier boycott started to fade away, consumer acceptance grew and my specialty shop was no longer :(

Could it have been a similar story in Norway?

Finland was also hit hard by a recession from 2008 - 2017. I understand Norway was doing much better these years and salaries are high. So the demand for low price options might have not been so wide-spread, making their market entry even more difficult.

(Edit: added a "without" to fix logic error)

Without knowing it exactly I have an idea that Norway might be a harder nut to crack because it is outside the EU and some rules don't apply there. I seem to remember something like a butter (?) crisis over there some time ago. That could never happen in a country that has fluent trade with its neighbors.

> Without knowing it exactly I have an idea that Norway might be a harder nut to crack because it is outside the EU and some rules don't apply there.

Norway is a member of the common market, it is said to be the most integrated non-member. Aldi/Lidl seem to be successful in Australia, USA, and Switzerland so I don't think EU membership is a requirement for their business model to succeed. Without being an expert in the field, I'd say it's more important to find the right balance between the aggressive company model and some local practices you better do not attack. Some local managements seem to be better to find the right middle ground than others. As also mentioned in the article Walmart failed in Germany. But Mc Donald's or Ikea haven't, so it can't be generally impossible in Germany.

However, being a member of the EU inner market does not apply for agriculture in the case of Norway. I guess this means if you have are sourcing frozen french fries you can get them on the EU market, but potatoes you need to source locally or pay potential customs. But I am not sure how the border line between agriculture and everything else belonging to the common market is actually defined. Nor do I know how relevant customs on agriculture are.

> I seem to remember something like a butter (?) crisis over there some time ago. That could never happen in a country that has fluent trade with its neighbors.

France had a butter crisis in 2017. Your search engine will bring up many articles. But France is in the common EU agriculture market and France is in the Euro. So I don't think your argument really holds. Whether Norway had a any butter crisis is beyond my knowledge.

yes, reading this article as European (that never visited the US) was a weirding experience. I lived in 4 different countries in Europe, and that's exactly how every supermarket work.

And to be fair, I thought that every supermarket in the world worked like that...

Can you imagine when the Americans will find automatic counters instead of cashiers? :)

Self check-out seems even more common in the US than in many European countries.

No offense, but it sounds like you need to travel more if you assume that businesses everywhere work like in a few European countries. Consider the vast differences in many Asian countries, to start.

I think they do have them. They know phrases like "Unexpected item in bagging area".

If the automatic checkout counters even look like they have a scale I won't waste my time. Not once have I made it out without the machine requiring an override, no matter how carefully I place and scan items. Thankfully it seems the scales are becoming less common.

I refuse to use self-checkout on principle: I am not doing any unpaid labor for some corporation, I already have a job.

If I'm physically able to do it, would otherwise need to wait longer to get through a cashier line, and don't have anything else to do with my time while waiting in the cashier line it seems like it's to my benefit to use the self-checkout on principle. It saves me time and costs me virtually nothing.

They seem be taking them out of a lot of stores, the shrink is more expensive than just paying somebody the $12/hr.

So overpay for someone else’s labor?

I wonder how Lidl's doing in Finland, which traditionally has had just 2 major chains really and not a whole lot of price pressure. No Aldi though.

It's doing well. It was a real revolution when they came, they have an army of fans, and every time I visit there's a few more.

Seems like most of the points you listed are a deterioration from the customer's perspective.

As I've mentioned elsewhere in this thread, Scandinavians are big on DIY and minimalism, and not big on service. This is a common complaint from foreigners who visit, but it's the working culture here. You, the customer, a a big boy and can take care of yourself.

I mean... that may be the attitude, but that doesn't make it good.

The last time I went to IKEA, their website had said they had 50+ of an item in stock, but there were 0 where it was supposed to be. I had to spend 10 minutes with an employee for them to find where the entire box had been misplaced by another employee, in another aisle.

When employees mess up (which is very common, we're all human), you can't take care of yourself. You need another employee to fix it. It has nothing to do with being a "big boy".

I don't get it, didn't you find an employee to help you when you actually needed it? How would the "full-service" model have helped?

Based on my experience that's pretty standard for european grocery stores. No cashier in Europe is ever going to bag your groceries.

Despite bagging your own groceries being a universal experience I haven't yet seen a local properly use a self-serve checkout kiosk. Instead of scanning an item and putting it in a bag on the weighing platform they instead scan the items and put them on the weighing platform, then pay, then put the items in the cart, move the cart towards the store exit and then bag their groceries.

I tried to, but it's impossible to resist temptation to rearrange stuff in the bags on weighing platform. The machine then seizes with complaint about unexpected stuff in bagging area. So I gave up on that.

The first two times I used the self-serve kiosk the machine complained constantly about unexpected stuff, and I noticed that I had placed my bags up to the edge of the platform. Now I place them in the middle of the platform and the machine seems happy. Either that or the store adjusted the sensitivity on the machines, hope that helps.

After my first experiences with the "bag-as-you-go" strategy causing the weighting platform to lose track of items I've scanned I gave up on that. Placing on the scales directly simply works more reliably.

Here in Sweden stores have started to switch to self scan without scales. Cheaper to buy, uses less space and no nuisance for the customers.

Or even better the stores that do self scan with a hand held scanner, just walk around continously bagging in your cart, put the barcode scanner in the holder when you exit and pay with NFC.

I just did that a few hours ago. It somehow feels like playing Frogger and Tetris at the same time, and I'm having trouble managing the multitasking. At least when the cashier does the scanning, you still have a bit of time to plan how to divide the load over the too few bags you took up front.

> most of the points you listed are a deterioration from the customer's perspective

Sure, just like flights are not as cushy as they used to be. The "deterioration" is more than compensated for by the drop in price.

The lower prices are not.

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