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

#441

Post by anticensor » Sat, May 18, 2019, 6:20 AM UTC

davrosthedalek wrote: post #360

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…

Re barcodes, in Germany, in the beginning, the cashiers were trained enough that they could actually enter the UPC from memory faster than scanning the item. Later, they added the barcodes on all sides which increased the speed even more. The quarter in the cart thing is very common in Germany even at high end supermarkets. The higher overhead compared to the US makes it very hard to higher people for this kind of jo…

Germany uses EAN-13, not UPC.

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

#442

Post by usr1106 » Sat, May 18, 2019, 6:21 AM UTC

usr1106 wrote: post #438

stkdump wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aldi cashiers didn't type the prices but numbers for the products. The register would lookup the prices. Cashiers would quickly punch those numbers in without picking up the items for many items and then swoop 5 to 10 items over the register part of the counter at once. I think Aldi held on to the system longer because it was indeed more efficient than scanning. But there is a limit on how fast one can bag the items,…

> The register would lookup the prices. Not in the 1970s and early 80s. Do you know what computers costed back then? 1 KB of memory was as expensive as the whole cash register used by Aldi/Lidl. And there was no computer networking whatsoever, not even between multi-million super computers. When the German railways introduced computers at the ticket windows in the 80s all ticketing data was stored on 8 inch diskettes…

> 8 inch diskettes

Maybe floppies was the more common term. Obviously that part of my memory hasn't been refreshed for a couple of years...

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

#443

Post by kkarakk » Sat, May 18, 2019, 6:25 AM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #393

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…

> Parmesan Garlic is more popular than every other flavor, and Safeway should stock more of that flavor than they do of other flavors Or they should increase the sale price relative to other flavors, so that it still sells out, but near the end of the sale period, maximizing profits. Or, they are doing the right thing, and you aren't the only person who has noticed it, and the sales drive people to the store at the e…

or people just goto amazon/online retailer that does stock it and order the product there. although infuriatingly companies seem to have caught onto this and don't sell some products online, in which case my contrarian brain just rejects the product entirely instead of accepting the artificial scarcity

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

#444

Post by tonyedgecombe » Sat, May 18, 2019, 6:25 AM UTC

ddebernardy wrote: post #418

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 e…

They don't want you to pack it at the till. They want you to put it straight back in the trolley then take it to the packing area to bag it up.

I've noticed everybody does this in Germany but most haven't grasped it in the UK yet.

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

#445

Post by anticensor » Sat, May 18, 2019, 6:27 AM UTC

stkdump wrote: post #424

usr1106 wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> -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. On a historical note (I am old enough to have shopped before bar codes existed): Generally stores had little price tags attached to every single item. Which was labour intensive twice: First someone has to att…

Aldi cashiers didn't type the prices but numbers for the products. The register would lookup the prices. Cashiers would quickly punch those numbers in without picking up the items for many items and then swoop 5 to 10 items over the register part of the counter at once. I think Aldi held on to the system longer because it was indeed more efficient than scanning. But there is a limit on how fast one can bag the items,…

If they had an unique barcode for each instance of a product, inventory management could have been easier.

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

#446

Post by eredengrin » Sat, May 18, 2019, 6:29 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…

One other thing you didn't mention is that they don't accept credit cards. Debit or cash only, to avoid the extra fees. Although I've heard this may have changed recently, but at least for a while all the ones I went to never accepted credit cards (now I sadly don't live near one).

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

#447

Post by kkarakk » Sat, May 18, 2019, 6:32 AM UTC

foota wrote: post #345

opportune wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it so weird how in the UK and much of the rest of europe, store managers and lots of blue collar jobs get paid so much more than software developers, even at large companies.

Are you saying your software engineers make below 75k?

Well their jobs are typically "easier" for values of hours worked and overtime expectation and holidays given plus really nice things in close walking distance. the quality of life is better and the money paid equals out. Living in the US is harsh in comparison in my experience

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

#448

Post by y4mi » Sat, May 18, 2019, 6:34 AM UTC

function_seven wrote: post #434

tzs wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just Safeway. I see the same thing at Walmart with 2 liter bottles of Dr. Pepper and Diet Dr. Pepper. I've never seen them run out of Dr. Pepper, and frequently see them out of Diet Dr. Pepper. This has been going on for years, but I've never seen them change the relative amount of Dr. Pepper and Diet Dr. Pepper they stock. Same story at the vending machines at the office building that my company used to hav…

I thought my store was the only one. At Stater Bros. the Coke product 12-packs will almost always be “on sale” at either 3/10.99, 4/12.99, or sometimes even 5/14.99. (And you must buy the multiple listed to get the deal) Every time, without fail, the Diet Coke column is nearly empty while the Coke, Sprite, and Coke Zero ones are full. Not only that, but Diet Coke gets the smallest portion of the endcap. My only ratio…

As if. All coke products are way over priced.

Just look at the pricing between different serving sizes. Their price differs often less than 30%, even if you compare 0.5l to 2l.

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

#449

Post by starbugs » Sat, May 18, 2019, 6:35 AM UTC

user5994461 wrote: post #282

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…

>>> They even tried to cut prices to below market cost I highly doubt that. It's illegal to sell under cost in Europe.

It wasn't back then. Guess why the German federal court made the original decision to stop selling under cost in 2002 [0]. Yep, Walmart.

[0] https://www.handelsblatt.com/archiv/dauerhafter-verkauf-unte...

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

#450

Post by systoll » Sat, May 18, 2019, 6:36 AM UTC

ddebernardy wrote: post #418

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 e…

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

Many (most?) Australian Aldis have that -- each cashier has two 'lanes' they can run groceries down after scanning, and customers alternate between the two.