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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

#501

Post by tastroder »

anovikov wrote: post #495
hannob wrote: post #478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel quite a few of those things are pretty standard in Europe, so I wonder if ALDI is just exporting european practices to the US. "Coin for a cart" e.g. is almost normal. I noticed that barcodes on all sides of a product is becoming more common, particularly in stores that allow self-scan (ALDI doesn't, but it obviously makes things easier also for customers that self-scan).

Haha except in EU it's not a quarter, it's 2 euros! And tons of carts still hang around abandoned with 2-coins in them.

In Germany most newer carts take 50ct, 1€, and 2€ coins. The older ones took 1€ (or 1DM before the introduction of the Euro). Abandoned carts on the premises aren't much of a thing anywhere I lived except for maybe the odd lazy person with a plastic coin in it (some.people carry those around e.g. on their key chain for when they don't have coins on hand).

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

#502

Post by Xylakant »

zaarn wrote: post #240
Xylakant wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Often with a toddler and/or car seat in hand, unlocking a cart (for example) is not just an inconvenience, it’s a dealbreaker Interesting issue. I’ve never had that problem as a parent and have never heard anyone else raise that as an issue - having carts locked is absolutely standard in germany since at least a couple of decades. Maybe people are just used to it. There are specialized carts nowadays for wheelchair…

It only defeats it partly. It's still your plastic coin. If you left the cart, you'd be handing someone else your stuff for free.

Absolutely. Mine is so worn that it barely works, but you'd have to pry it from my cold, dead hands. The store would give me a new one for free just for asking if they can change a bill so I have coins to unlock a cart.

The best thing ever was that in the beginning, the plastic ones sold for the same price as the face value of an equivalent coin. People would by a plastic 1 DM-sized piece for 1 DM.

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

#503

Post by Brakenshire »

NeedMoreTea wrote: post #464
achillesheels wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 stro…

I forgot that's what kicked store brands off in the first place. > unit cost of marketing. I strongly speculate this is the main reason for Kraft Heinz’s struggles Accidentally so revealing: Kraft have aimed a bullet carefully and precisely at themselves, Heinz are indistinguishable from Aldi and have nothing unique to offer but expense. Asda and Tesco own brands were always how not to do it, or almost do it. Corn fl…

The upmarket own brands in Tesco are good. Usually cheaper than the brand name but made with proper ingredients, like Pesto made with olive oil rather than sunflower oil.

It is interesting how brands have just completely hollowed themselves out through milking profits and producing at substandard quality. If a brand doesn’t stand for quality what does it stand for? Many have gone for nostalgia and marketing, and they will die as a result.

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

#504

Post by krn »

anigbrowl wrote: post #491
hannob wrote: post #478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel quite a few of those things are pretty standard in Europe, so I wonder if ALDI is just exporting european practices to the US. "Coin for a cart" e.g. is almost normal. I noticed that barcodes on all sides of a product is becoming more common, particularly in stores that allow self-scan (ALDI doesn't, but it obviously makes things easier also for customers that self-scan).

Aldi made quite a lot of those things standard in Europe.

This. Aldi was founded in 1946, and many of its efficiency-oriented practices were later adopted by other supermarkets in Europe[1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldi

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

#505

Post by jacquesm »

krn wrote: post #504
anigbrowl wrote: post #491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aldi made quite a lot of those things standard in Europe.

This. Aldi was founded in 1946, and many of its efficiency-oriented practices were later adopted by other supermarkets in Europe[1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldi

Albert Heijn started the whole self-serving thing in 1952 (and was founded in 1887!).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Heijn

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

#506

Post by Odenwaelder »

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…

They didn't enter the barcodes from memory, they entered the price of the item from memory. That alone is a feat, though.

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

#507

Post by jacquesm »

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…

> we'd sell 75% yellow American cheese and 25% white American cheese

Both are terrible. If there is one thing I really missed on the other side of the Atlantic it was the European quality and variety of cheese.

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

#508

Post by skrause »

kzrdude wrote: post #489
hannob wrote: post #478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel quite a few of those things are pretty standard in Europe, so I wonder if ALDI is just exporting european practices to the US. "Coin for a cart" e.g. is almost normal. I noticed that barcodes on all sides of a product is becoming more common, particularly in stores that allow self-scan (ALDI doesn't, but it obviously makes things easier also for customers that self-scan).

Euro here, I don't think chasing the bottom of the barrel is worth celebrating. Also, Germany has the worst standard of grocery stores (I'd prefer grocery stores in general from neighboring France, Switzerland etc) due to their assortment and quality of products - and Aldi and Lidl are responsible for that.

Cheap medium-quality food is not really just an Aldi/Lidl thing, it's culturally a German thing. Germans just don't care about food quality as much as e.g. French people, so competition values price over quality. I'm German and also this way, that's why I'm generally happy to shop in Aldi/Lidl.

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

#509

Post by skrause »

luckydata wrote: post #274
antnisp wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's so weird is that all those sound rudimentary rather than innovative to my european ears.

American grocery stores are so comically bad and poorly managed it's hard to imagine for a European until you move here. Trust me, it's a shitshow. The only one that works is Trader Joe's for completely different reasons and personally in my first couple years I was completely obsessed with it, now a little less.

... and Trader Joe's is owned by Aldi.

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

#510

Post by mijowi »

toomanybeersies wrote: post #362
opportune wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I live in the US. But from what I've heard about software engineer salaries in the UK, even at most large multinationals (except only Google?), it seems someone with 5 yoe as a store manager at Aldis in the UK makes (afaik) more than basically every software engineer with 5 yoe in the UK

I don't see why an area manager for Aldi stores shouldn't be getting paid a lot of money. It's not exactly an unskilled job, it just doesn't require extensive qualifications. You're managing large numbers of employees over several different stores. Some days I feel bad about how much money I make as a software engineer. It's an easy job. All I do is sit at a computer and write some code for a few hours a day. I don't…

Maybe it’s easy for you and many HN readers, but it’s hard for the average person. There aren’t many people that understand how to program, and there are much fewer who understand how to program well.

At my tech company of around 30 people, even the most technically inclined employees don’t really understand programming. And I think my developer colleague is in the category that cannot program well. (I would optimistically say that I can.)

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