In Australia food seems very expensive in general, so having Aldi isn't so much about getting cheap food, but getting reasonably priced food. Although I think they generally stock less healthy foods, so you have to be careful with dips and things like that. But fruit, veg, meat, milk type stuff it's a winner. They also sell a lot of homeware on a rotation basis, so one week you can buy a drill, the next and air compressor, etc. I guess this works well for them as it creates scarcity.
Aldi, a brutally efficient grocery chain, is upending America's supermarkets
371–380 of 653 posts
Re: Aldi, a brutally efficient grocery chain, is upending America's supermarkets
#372Earlier 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 can't remember where, but I know I've seen those magnetic locks somewhere in Chicago, I think around 10 years ago while in college.
Every Jewel Osco I've been to in Chicago has the magnetic locks. The homeless that steal carts always have Whole Foods carts.
Re: Aldi, a brutally efficient grocery chain, is upending America's supermarkets
#373Earlier 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…
Assumes grocer’s primary customer is consumers. What does the product manufacturer or the distributor want? Not the same as what the consumer wants. Who pays what to the grocer? Ever seen 3-5 people staring at shelf space and taking notes? Guess what they are buying.
Re: Aldi, a brutally efficient grocery chain, is upending America's supermarkets
#374Earlier quoted context omitted.
Having somebody collect the trolleys creates a job, having somebody pack the groceries creates another job, just like having somebody do the refueling of your car at the gas station. They are not especially demanding or well-paying jobs, but the shift to service-driven economies isn't a new thing nor particularly exclusive to the US.
That's one of the biggest differences between the US and Sweden, and probably most of Europe; access to cheap labor. Too cheap, if you ask me. You could never employ somebody as a greeter here, or to pack your groceries, or to pump your gas, or other extremely menial and near useless jobs. Can people really support themselves on those, or are they forced to work multiple jobs? It's actually becoming relevant here, be…
> You could never employ somebody as a greeter here, or to pack your groceries, or to pump your gas, or other extremely menial and near useless jobs.
Well, not full time.
Some German grocers have started to employ very young people during Fridays and Saturdays as packers. They look young enough to be still in school, also collect tips with little boxes, but they are not full-time employees but rather "mini-jobbers".
Which is just such a weird transition considering that many of the jobs I did in my youth have now been turned into their own weird job sectors like that.
While delivering papers is now something exclusively done by adults in cars, as an extra income stream for unemployed on social security. I don't know how that can be economic but I see it happening all the time.
> Personally I think it's a big step backwards to have people do extremely basic stuff as busy work.
Some would argue that's been happening on a rather massive scale for a while already. Our productivity constantly increases, so do our numbers, as such it's only a matter of time before we end up with a whole lot of "surplus" humans in terms of labor demand for keeping everything going.
Re: Aldi, a brutally efficient grocery chain, is upending America's supermarkets
#375Earlier quoted context omitted.
I never, ever carry change.
Why not? Cash is divisible, readily accepted, and anonymous.
Credit card fees are included in every purchase. I typically end up with 20 to 100 bucks every month. If I use that for travel I get even more. Twenty dollars in cash tends to last me an entire month.
Re: Aldi, a brutally efficient grocery chain, is upending America's supermarkets
#376I'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 wonder if one can pin a camera on the ceiling looking down at the conveyor belt, scanning all barcodes at once? Better than doing them manually one by one. If every box has barcodes on every side it should be possible for the software, knowing the size of the box, to get an idea if everything was scanned correctly or if an item had the barcode obscured. Maybe 2-3 cameras under different angles.
Cameras are cheap, and recognition software scales well.
Re: Aldi, a brutally efficient grocery chain, is upending America's supermarkets
#377Earlier quoted context omitted.
the crazy part about Aldi isn't just their food prices but the odd things that just show up dirt cheap. An example, a full 10x10 Gazebo that you assemble. Not with cheap like poles for full on L corners and netting. It was under $150 and just blows away stuff twice or more. The order of pricing in my area is Aldi So usually for us its Aldi when we are near for the basics, Wal Mart for some name brands, and old retail…
I spent ages ignoring the aisle of crap for being so cheap it clearly can't be any good. Then one year we found some sleeping bags for £10 or £12. Bought one and it turned out to be better made and designed than "proper" outdoor brands selling for £40 or £60. So went back for another before the offer switched. They're lasting much longer than the brands ever have too. We've had some absurdly priced bargains in the ye…
Yours is a fascinating anecdote in the history of private labeling, which originated in the U.K. recession in the early 80’s wherein retailers began store brands to lower prices out of necessity to keep customer loyalty.
Having spent the last 4 years in sourcing, I can say I am excited to try store brands because I know most of the time marquee brands are more expensive because of their unit cost of marketing. I strongly speculate this is the main reason for Kraft Heinz’s struggles.
Re: Aldi, a brutally efficient grocery chain, is upending America's supermarkets
#378Earlier quoted context omitted.
The US is the epitome of bullshit, bureaucratic jobs. Medical billing, for example, is someone taking the list of procedures a medical office performs and plugs that into a computer so that the "codes" the office uses can match the "codes" the healthcare provider uses. I know what you're thinking, that describes a LUT (lookup table). Yes, you would be correct, a LUT is an actual profession in the USA.
Your example is the epitome of bullshit. There is a tremendous amount of tech in medicine and considerable investment at larger healthcare systems. If medical coding were such a simple automateable problem it would have been done (I mean it’s freaking billing... absolutely the strongest and direct financial incentives to solve). The first mistake/flaw you’re making is that the healthcare provider uses codes. That is…
> If medical coding were such a simple automateable problem it would have been done
This profession exists only in the US. What are the other modern healthcare systems doing so they don’t need a coder? I’ll leave that for you to discover.
Re: Aldi, a brutally efficient grocery chain, is upending America's supermarkets
#379Earlier quoted context omitted.
How do you evaluate the quality of the bagging if you don't know how to do a good job? Are they just faster?
In my experience they’re faster, pack the bags with less wasted space (but not heavily, just good at fitting things appropriately), and importantly they’re not distracted by dealing with the cashier for payment or coupons or whatever other questions may arise.
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Re: Aldi, a brutally efficient grocery chain, is upending America's supermarkets
#380Earlier quoted context omitted.
The US is the epitome of bullshit, bureaucratic jobs. Medical billing, for example, is someone taking the list of procedures a medical office performs and plugs that into a computer so that the "codes" the office uses can match the "codes" the healthcare provider uses. I know what you're thinking, that describes a LUT (lookup table). Yes, you would be correct, a LUT is an actual profession in the USA.
Well it's not just that, your medical coder must try different related codes to see if the insurance will take a different code if the first proposed code isn't accepted by the health insurance company. 98765 not covered? Try 98764, that might be a covered procedure...
I’m sorry but this doesn’t bely my point. This sounds like insurance companies and healthcare providers have made healthcare needlessly complex. If they are the same procedure why should 2 codes exist at all?