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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

#291

Post by odux »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #239
zepearl wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

High standards and tight margins? Sounds like Apple.

Tight margins and Apple don't belong in the same sentence

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

#293

Post by mruts »

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…

Reminds me of how I got to Panera Bread to get blueberry bagels, but they are always sold out..

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

#294

Post by lkbm »

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 haven't seen the number pad used extensively at any other grocer.

The thing I do see at HEB is they'll scan the same item n times when they see I have n of the same thing, so they do effect roughly the same efficiency. They might not as intelligently differentiate the packaging, though.

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

#295

Post by chrischen »

GCA10 wrote: post #289
HeWhoLurksLate wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Safeway's use of data is comically bad. Since 2010 or so, I've been signed up for their Just4U special discounts, based on what they know about my shopping habits, as a California dad. Recently they offered me a bonus coupon for Pampers diapers. Not a match! Our kids have been out of diapers since the days when BlackBerry was the coolest phone in town. Maybe longer. I'm not impulse-buying diapers for anyone else's ki…

Well as for sanitary napkins they may have assumed that if you have kids, you have a wife.

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

#296

Post by bartread »

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…

-their conveyor belt is far longer than most stores. You should be able to get your entire cart worth of groceries on the conveyor at once. This minimizes the slowness of people handing one item at a time to the next checker.

As others have pointed out, this isn't particularly innovative: this is the norm in large European supermarkets, regardless of brand.

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

#298

Post by lqet »

FabHK wrote: post #229
starbugs wrote: post #10

It's quite impressive how things have turned. Not long ago Walmart was about to disrupt the German supermarket landscape. They even tried to cut prices to below market cost to conquer Aldi, Lidl, and the other big discount supermarket chains. After a couple of years they gave up and left. Now Aldi appears to be "fighting back" successfully in the US. The history of Aldi's efficiency [0] is pretty impressive. It actua…

It's not uncommon in Germany to go to Aldi first, then buy everything that you could't get at the "full service" more expensive super market next door.

It's the only reasonable thing to do. REWE / Edeka / ... also have standard groceries (yoghurt, cheese, pasta, cans of tomatoes, corn, etc) from their discount brand which cost exactly as much as the Aldi product, but they are usually vastly inferior in taste and quality. Just go to REWE and buy a can of ja! corn. It tastes like somebody yellow-painted puffed rice.

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

#299

Post by freeflight »

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…

> All flavors get the same shelf space, Parmesan Garlic always sells out quickly, and Safeway appears to be happy to forgo the lost sales of Parmesan Garlic triscuits that they could have made if they'd just had them in stock.

Imho this is probably due to the fact that they make more than enough money during the sales periods.

If somebody shows up during the sales period, with the intention of getting Parmesan Garlic, they very likely will still end up buying another flavor even if Parmesan Garlic ain't in stock anymore.

This is easily justified if somebody went to the store just for the Triscuit sale.

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

#300

Post by deathanatos »

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.

If you visit Aldi at all regularly, you just keep a quarter in the car's change drawer.
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