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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

#251

Post by linuxftw »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #132
NeedMoreTea wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> -they combine varieties (like flavors of granola bars) of product in the same box. This greatly reduces the shelf space required. This is the only thing that fails about Aldi. Let's say you want their Chicken Tikka sauce. The mixed boxes mean good chance you won't see it as Tikka always goes first. You go through the whole 6 boxes of inventory, and yep, all sold - the three spaces in every box. Same for pizza - one…

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…

Most likely, the sale is to move the products that don't otherwise move (eg, everything but the parmesan garlic). Clearly you're willing to spend full price on those, so there's no incentive to sell more of them at a lower margin.

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

#252

Post by nickpsecurity »

nyolfen wrote: post #83
msla wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember Aldi from Missouri, twenty-odd years ago now, and I don't have any negative memories of it. It's Poor Person Costco: They spend nothing on looks and it shows, but they don't have the bulk or the high-end products. The only reason I wouldn't shop there now is that I don't usually carry any pocket change these days. Maybe I would if I could walk to one where I live.

i keep a quarter in my car specifically for aldi

Exactly. They make it seem so hard, esp "don't carry cash folks." I keep about $2 in quarters in my car. At least one is for Aldi, most are for air if I need it, and an extra few on whatever might come up. The latter are often drink machines.

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

#253

Post by SiempreViernes »

itronitron wrote: post #60
amelius wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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,…

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.

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

#254

Post by Fripplebubby »

glitcher wrote: post #167

WinCo Foods in some of the western US states attempts to drive down costs with some similar tactics, although not to nearly the extent that it sounds like Aldi does. Plus WinCo is employee owned, which I think is kinda cool. In the western US states, I only see Aldi locations in southern California currently. It will be interesting to see how they affect other competitors as they expand to more cities out here.

As someone who has not worked in retail I don't know much about how "employee owned" actually manifests for WinCo employees (esp. shop floor non-managers), but it does seem like they have much better benefits than other chains. And it's quite cheap, so would recommend to Western US folks.

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

#255

Post by JakeTheAndroid »

freehunter wrote: post #211
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…

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.

Living on the West Coast I see carts all the time that have the wheel locks, they just don't do anything.

As a person that has been a cart pusher, carts suck. The wheels, especially at the front where they put the wheel locks are the first thing that break. They barely touch the ground and spin in circles all the time. Stores rarely ever invest in fixing or buying new carts.

I firmly believe that many places in the US simply gave up on it, because what happens instead is people still try to steal them, drag them a great distance damaging them, and they have to go get it anyways. I think we had maybe 3 good carts at the Sam's Club I worked at our of like 200 or 300 carts.

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

#256

Post by HeWhoLurksLate »

shoo wrote: post #172
GreyTheory wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've bought two pairs of boots from Aldi - one pair about a decade ago and are still my favourite pair, and another steel-toecapped safety shoe that I wear whenever I need to go to one of our manufacturing sites. Super comfy. And I think they were about £20 a piece.

I bought a warm reflective work safety jacket from Aldi a few weeks ago -- I've been wearing it while commuting on bike, it's great. Warm, high quality materials, cost about AUD 30. This week my local Aldi is doing a big sale on snow gear as we approach snow season -- I expect the store will be crazy with people trying to fit out the entire family with new ski jackets, etc.

A few years ago my dad and I got hiking backpacks from Aldi, as well as "hydration packs" and light cycling bags for a grand total of about $50 for the two of us. We promptly took the hiking packs and water bladders with us to the Philmont BSA reservation, and they held up just fine.

We bought some more the next time they were available, and they were even better than the first generation. I love those backpacks.

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

#257

Post by [deleted] »

zepearl wrote: post #56
AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #19

In addition to being the cheapest, I'm often impressed by the quality of some of Aldi's pantry staples. Specifically, I'm blown away by their onions. I buy a bag of onions every 1-3 weeks. Since I can't individually inspect every onion in the bag, I'm resigned to the fact that anywhere from 10-30% of the onions will be unusable when I start to cut into them and find the rot. This is true of pretty much every grocer I…

A friend of mine worked for a logistic company and he told me many times that dealing with Aldi was a nightmare for them because they were extremely demanding: very thin profit margin, tough quality checks (when delivering the items to the warehouses the checks were done on many more samples and in a much more detailed way than what other supermarket chains did) and if the truck arrived at the warehouse anytime after…

[deleted]

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

#258

Post by war1025 »

AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #19

In addition to being the cheapest, I'm often impressed by the quality of some of Aldi's pantry staples. Specifically, I'm blown away by their onions. I buy a bag of onions every 1-3 weeks. Since I can't individually inspect every onion in the bag, I'm resigned to the fact that anywhere from 10-30% of the onions will be unusable when I start to cut into them and find the rot. This is true of pretty much every grocer I…

Kind of an interesting comment because growing up the comment I always heard from people was "Avoid fresh produce at Aldi" because it had a reputation for being bad.

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

#259

Post by nickpsecurity »

msla wrote: post #53
post_break wrote: post #31

I guess I'm a weirdo who likes shopping there. Compared to Kroger or HEB I usually walk out of Aldi with a bill 50% cheaper than the other stores. We have our own bags and a picnic like basket thing we keep in the truck for Aldi stops. Yes it's "generic" but my uncle worked for a big food company that made big brand food and "generic" is often just a label change over the brand name. I can see why the rich people wou…

I remember Aldi from Missouri, twenty-odd years ago now, and I don't have any negative memories of it. It's Poor Person Costco: They spend nothing on looks and it shows, but they don't have the bulk or the high-end products. The only reason I wouldn't shop there now is that I don't usually carry any pocket change these days. Maybe I would if I could walk to one where I live.

I'm a new member to Costco. I started describing Aldi as like a dollar store version of Costco. It wasn't and definitely isn't after the remodel: it's smarter than Costco on product side. It's like an evolution. That I can get more stuff from Aldi at lower prices with acceptable to great quality proves it. What Aldi is doing, selling products singles in cases, is what Costco should be doing in majority of situations. They're already doing a version of it for those special, treasure-hunt-style items like people describe for Aldi. A lot of them are way overpriced, though, compared to some upscale competitors. I'd adjust it to balance giving people brands they can brag about but aiming for more sales growth.

Also, I can't tell you how many times I'd have bought something at Costco if it wasn't a megapack, humongous size, etc. Some corroboration for my hypothesis in the fact that most of Costco's food doesn't move quickly in my visits there vs Aldi, Kroger, Walmart, Dollar General, etc. The latter stores have whole sections of shelves wiped out with lots of individual items going low. Stockers are usually all over the place stocking those isles with hardly any stocking at the Costco outside clothes and perishable foods. Even perishable they're mostly date or quality checking. Although it could be key to strategy, I'd like to see them at least experiment with smaller sizes on meat, bakery, prepared items, and common non-refrigerated.

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

#260

Post by tylerhou »

HeWhoLurksLate wrote: post #198
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…

So, to sum up these complaints- retail companies have a lot of data at their hands- they just need to look at it and do something with it.

Why do you assume that retail companies are not looking at data already? Target was (in)famously able to predict that a teenager was pregnant before she herself knew based on her shopping habits. It's entirely possible that retail companies are already following a close to optimal strategy (don't sell too many items at such a low price because they're a loss leader?).
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