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Aldi, a brutally efficient grocery chain, is upending America's supermarkets

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Re: Aldi, a brutally efficient grocery chain, is upending America's supermarkets

#211

Post by freehunter »

notahacker wrote: post #129
antnisp wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's so weird is that all those sound rudimentary rather than innovative to my european ears.

Yep. The most notable thing about Aldi (and similar competitor Lidl) from a UK perspective is that they pay above average for comparable supermarket jobs and reduce staffing accordingly. But I remember putting coins into slots for a trolley (and reclaiming them!) when I was young enough to be sitting in the child seat nearly 30 years ago, long before Aldi was a factor in the UK market. Is this really an innovative co…

I visited a Target store in Madison Wisconsin and that was the first place I ever discovered magnetic wheel clamps on shopping carts. So it exists in the US... it's just not super common.

Re: Aldi, a brutally efficient grocery chain, is upending America's supermarkets

#212

Post by wahern »

someemptyspace wrote: post #110
hobofan wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> depositing a quarter for a cart eliminates the need to pay people to collect carts What's the alternative? Growing up in Germany I've literally never seen it any other way.

In the United States carts are free. You collect a cart at the entrance to the store, and return the cart to a cart corral in the parking lot next to your car. Then a worker from the store periodically goes out to the corral to collect the carts and return them to the store entrance.

In California you run the cart up a curb, leave it in an empty parking space, or maybe give it a gentle push and let it roam free. Corrals are depots for broken and rusted carts.

Re: Aldi, a brutally efficient grocery chain, is upending America's supermarkets

#213

Post by zaarn »

jvagner wrote: post #188
osrec wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well they aren't really for sale or rent either. Not sure what your point is?

I never, ever carry change.

In germany, paying with hard cash is still very common, having some change is basically the norm (you can also use plastic tokens instead of real coins, you can get those for free from a lot of places here, including the shop themselves, either as promotion or if you ask)

Re: Aldi, a brutally efficient grocery chain, is upending America's supermarkets

#214

Post by thaumasiotes »

task_queue wrote: post #206
thaumasiotes wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This looks related to something that's mystified me for years about Safeway. Background: - Safeway rotates every product through "sale" and "full price" periods. It's a strictly calendar-based thing; every sale price is going to recur if you wait, and every product will spend a lot of time at "full price" and a lot of other time at two or three different "sale" prices. - Triscuits come in a variety of special flavors…

Companies will often sign shelf-space and display agreements with supermarkets when it comes to displaying their brands' products in-store. There very well might be an agreement between Safeway and Nabisco when it comes to their inventory display.

I don't see how this could lead to the observed results. Nabisco shouldn't be any less interested in selling more Parmesan Garlic triscuits while selling the same quantity of other triscuits than Safeway should be. There is no party who gets a win out of just not ordering/selling the triscuits; this is a pure loss for everyone involved.

Re: Aldi, a brutally efficient grocery chain, is upending America's supermarkets

#215

Post by asveikau »

orthoxerox wrote: post #128
froindt wrote: post #96

I'm an industrial engineer and geek out about Aldi frequently. Here are a few things I've noticed (and researched) which differentiate them from others. -they have barcode on 5 or 6 sides of their products, and they're typically huge! They nearly never need to orient a product to scan it. Their scan speed is far faster than any other supermarket I've been at. -if two products are very similar, they'll change the pack…

TIL you can call American stores. Why do people do that?

The only time I've done that in the current century is to confirm holiday hours when not made explicit on the web. eg. If it's New Year's, "are you open today, what time will you close?"

If the store is clever they will leave a pre-recorded message announcing holiday hours.

Re: Aldi, a brutally efficient grocery chain, is upending America's supermarkets

#216

Post by Skunkleton »

xfitm3 wrote: post #205
froindt wrote: post #96

I'm an industrial engineer and geek out about Aldi frequently. Here are a few things I've noticed (and researched) which differentiate them from others. -they have barcode on 5 or 6 sides of their products, and they're typically huge! They nearly never need to orient a product to scan it. Their scan speed is far faster than any other supermarket I've been at. -if two products are very similar, they'll change the pack…

I do like my plastic bags.

You should stop that.

Re: Aldi, a brutally efficient grocery chain, is upending America's supermarkets

#217

Post by justin66 »

Grumbledour wrote: post #150
notahacker wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. The most notable thing about Aldi (and similar competitor Lidl) from a UK perspective is that they pay above average for comparable supermarket jobs and reduce staffing accordingly. But I remember putting coins into slots for a trolley (and reclaiming them!) when I was young enough to be sitting in the child seat nearly 30 years ago, long before Aldi was a factor in the UK market. Is this really an innovative co…

The main reason I have always heard mentioned why they have a deposit is that shopping carts are really expensive and they don't want people to take them home, have teens do silly things with them etc. Maybe that's not so much a problem in the US, where I imagine supermarkets may not be in the city center but mostly reachable by car and thus less foot traffic to take the carts? But maybe the deposit here in Europe is…

> The main reason I have always heard mentioned why they have a deposit is that shopping carts are really expensive and they don't want people to take them home, have teens do silly things with them etc.

I'm sure the deposit is just to encourage people to put the carts back where they belong, reducing the amount of work staff need to do outside the store.

If you're going to steal a shopping cart, the quarter won't factor in.

Re: Aldi, a brutally efficient grocery chain, is upending America's supermarkets

#218

Post by kyokpae »

Fun fact: one of the founders of Aldi was kidnapped in 1971. A ransom of $3M was paid. After he had been released he fought a court battle to classify it as tax deductible business expense.

Source: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandco...

Re: Aldi, a brutally efficient grocery chain, is upending America's supermarkets

#219

Post by freehunter »

jvagner wrote: post #180
jldugger wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aka the grocery store that doesn't take credit cards.

? Do you mean debit cards too? They do take those, and gosh, I feel bad for people who need to put food on credit.

Debit cards often have transaction fees associated with them that the customer pays (as opposed to the merchant paying). Even when they don't, running it as debit doesn't get you cash back or rewards or various things that running a card as credit gets you.

Your typical bank card can be run as either debit or credit (same card, same bank account). But running it as debit usually has some serious drawbacks to running it as credit. You always want to run your American debit card as a credit card if the merchant allows.

Re: Aldi, a brutally efficient grocery chain, is upending America's supermarkets

#220

Post by swiftcoder »

jvagner wrote: post #180
jldugger wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aka the grocery store that doesn't take credit cards.

? Do you mean debit cards too? They do take those, and gosh, I feel bad for people who need to put food on credit.

It's often not about needing to put food on credit.

Many relatively well-off people run all of their expenses through a credit card (and pay it off in full at the end of the month) - some in chase of reward points, some just for convenience of carrying a single card.

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