Aldi, a brutally efficient grocery chain, is upending America's supermarkets • Hacker News Board

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

#411

Post by interfixus » Sat, May 18, 2019, 4:49 AM UTC

> Aldi, which expects its customers to endure a number of minor inconveniences not typical at other American grocery stores. Shoppers need a quarter to rent a shopping cart. Plastic and paper bags are available only for a fee. And at checkout, cashiers hurry shoppers away, expecting them to bag their own groceries in a separate location away from the cash register

Interesting glimpse into a parallel universe. Everything mentioned is standard practice in the parts of Europe I know, except the trolley fee is the equivalent of two to four dollars. Where I live, that fee works as intended, but I remember living in the UK more than thirty years ago - I regularly scooped several pounds by picking up abandoned trolleys in the Safeway parking lot and returning them to their designated shed.

As for bagging, I'd quickly turn hostile if anyone attempted to handle the goods I just payed for.

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

#412

Post by anonymousDan » Sat, May 18, 2019, 4:49 AM UTC

Shivetya wrote: post #51

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…

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…

Ha,my dad is obsessed with Aldi for this reason. He'll come home with say 50 rolls of dental floss or 12 jars of marmalade as they were on sale one week, knowing they wouldn't be available again potentially for months.

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

#413

Post by demoo » Sat, May 18, 2019, 4:52 AM UTC

Got a friend who is overseeing manager of about 5-6 Aldi supermarkets in my area.

At the end of every day, every supermarket calls him with the daily results. He writes them down, takes a picture and sends that to his manager at the national HQ.

He just uses his phone and the occasional meeting to do business, there is no computer/laptop or system on his end.

Aldi is always portrayed as brutally efficient. So I was wondering what to read into this. Best I was able to come up with is that it's cheaper for them not to have an overseeing system to manage this.

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

#414

Post by Rebelgecko » Sat, May 18, 2019, 5:00 AM UTC

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.

Maybe it's regional, but Aldi by me definitely has plastic bags. They're fairly sturdy as well— I've definitely gotten my 10¢ worth

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

#415

Post by AnthonyMouse » Sat, May 18, 2019, 5:02 AM UTC

thaumasiotes wrote: post #405

freeflight wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are some really weird sales then, what use is the sale if nobody knows about it? In Germany, most grocers have little leaflets where the majority of sales are announced a bit ahead of time. Aldi makes a lot of consumer goods business with that, when they sold their first desktop in the mid-90s, all of them built by Medion in the UK, it was a huge deal with long waiting lines even before the stores opened and th…

> Those are some really weird sales then, what use is the sale if nobody knows about it? OK, it's possible that there's a low-profile outlet for releasing news of upcoming discount periods, and I just don't know about it. However, I can list several effects of the sale that occur whether or not shoppers know about it in advance of coming to the store: - You might choose to buy more of something than otherwise, since…

In addition to that, there are psychological effects. You go to the store and find things unexpectedly on sale, which makes you want to go back to the store. Then when you do something else is on sale, which pleases you again and reinforces you coming back to the store.

The fact that one $3 thing you bought was unexpectedly on sale but every time you go to the store you spend $200 on other stuff is a thing that the store is aware of.

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

#416

Post by stkdump » Sat, May 18, 2019, 5:09 AM UTC

convivialdingo wrote: post #202

wongarsu wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also in the rare case that a cart is abandoned someone will quickly bring it back or use it themselves. The person abandoning the cart basically pays the finder

At my Aldis some of the more industrious folks will happily return your cart for you to get the quarter.

I remember people used to do this in Germany when I was a kid ~20 years ago at bigger shops. They would walk up to people loading their cars and ask if they can return the cart for them. I always perceived it as a form of begging. Nowadays I don't see it anymore.

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

#417

Post by lugg » Sat, May 18, 2019, 5:10 AM UTC

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…

This sounds a lot closer to Pak'n'Save of New Zealand than the Aldi's we have in Australia.

Seems like they might have quite a lot of variation on locality.

Ive noticed this in the small too, some suburbs have much better Aldi's than others when it comes to selection.

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

#418

Post by ddebernardy » Sat, May 18, 2019, 5:14 AM UTC

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…

You forgot another important bit: the pickup area after their conveyor belt is one of the shortest out there, which forces customers to pack in a hurry so as to keep up with how fast the cashier is going.

Speaking for myself, it's the part that annoys me most when I shop at one. I get why they designed their POS it, but it's just obnoxious for the elderly and for parents with by small children.

It would seem simple enough to solve, too: just add two such areas.

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

#419

Post by lugg » Sat, May 18, 2019, 5:16 AM UTC

c3534l wrote: post #401

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…

I used to work at a grocery store deli. Every week, without fail, we'd sell 75% yellow American cheese and 25% white American cheese (and that's being generous to the amount of white we sold). I asked my boss why we didn't just buy more yellow than white instead of buying exactly one box of white for every box of yellow and she just got mad and said "what, you think you can do my job better than me?" I still deeply w…

Probably caused by decouling between buy price and realised sell price.

You might also find the white is partly a byproduct that needs to be made no matter what.

And this brings me to what also is truly good at, they own the full chain and leverage it.

There are certain products I notice that only come in stock some years and it seems like they're made out of excess produce.

I.e. a cereal I like is made entirely out of these chunky things that usually go in as additives to other cereals. It looks like they only stock it when they have a cheap wheat price.

Another one is the nut bars and what kind of fruits they have mixed in.

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

#420

Post by stkdump » Sat, May 18, 2019, 5:19 AM UTC

usr1106 wrote: post #199

ThJ wrote: post #4

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…

> 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…

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.