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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

#601

Post by dontbenebby »

scarface74 wrote: post #402
JBReefer wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People outside the US tend to not understand how unbelievably wealthy the country is. I’ve posted stats, you can check my history, but accounting for cost of living and taxes there are no states as poor as wealthy EU countries on average. If you ever find an Italian, talk to him about life in small towns. People are just tired of hearing about the USA because of our cultural domination, and because the media only pla…

Have you ever been to the southern US? Specifically Mississippi or Alabama or even some parts of Georgia?

Or West Virginia?

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

#602

Post by luckydata »

spinachdippa wrote: post #566
luckydata wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You have obviously never shopped in a HEB or Meijers.

I lived in Ann Arbor for a couple years and shopped at Meijers. Not good for European standards. The one on Saline Road (just in case you're familiar with the area) had comically large isles that took forever to scan, the vegetable section would be the standout in the store for sure, much better than Safeway / Vons for sure, and the beer / liquor section was something to behold especially thanks to the local craft brew culture but everything else was just done poorly. Checkouts were INSANELY slow and while there were baggers that would look darts at you if you tried to bag your own groceries, they would routinely forget stuff out and I would drive all the way home to discover I wouldn't have my steaks, or something else...

Sorry, before you say "you haven't tried x regional chain in the US", spend some time in Europe. French chains (Auchan especially) have raised the bar for everyone else, it just hasn't happened in the US yet but I suspect someone at Amazon will look very closely at that model and repeat it here.

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

#603

Post by luckydata »

skrause wrote: post #509
luckydata wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

holy shit I didn't know that! Makes sense :)

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

#604

Post by resoluteteeth »

Scoundreller wrote: post #231
microcolonel wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My thought is that, although much of this is common sense, retailers have largely lost the will to live. They waste a lot of money on typical corporate money pits, but tend not to try improving the retail business itself. From what I gather in what people say, having only been to one Aldi before (so I don't really have enough experience to say much); I think Aldi has bucked the trend, and is trying to do a good job ,…

The coin thing is psychological. If you want to avoid carrying bags by hand, melt it for scrap, push your friends around, or get to your car 2 minutes faster, foregoing a quarter is great value. Unfortunately for them/me, if I’m coming by chance by bicycle, I usually don’t have a coin and reduce my shopping to the necessities without a cart. When you feel the weight of each item, you think more about every item you b…

I just wish Aldi also had baskets to make it easier when I bike there.

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

#605

Post by function_seven »

wcunning wrote: post #557
function_seven wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Reasons that I can think of: 1) they don't want to take more of a loss than they have to go get you in the door, 2) the people who buy diet coke or diet Dr pepper are statistically more likely to shop sales than the people who buy non-diet, 3) the relative allotted shelf space and display area aren't just a store manager decision, but actually a product the grocery store sells to the manufacturers, 4) (2) & (3) imply…

I think your #3 makes a lot of sense. I always forget how much the manufacturer can often dictate shelf placement and layout.

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

#606

Post by chungleong »

namdnay wrote: post #467
chungleong wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the concept just doesn't work as well in the US. Parking lots are larger than in Europe. You'd need a guy to move the carts from satellite collections points back to the store anyway.

That’s the same in Europe, there will be a collection point every 50m or so, then they drive round with carts to trail them back to base. I don’t necessarily agree with you for parking lot size, some of the hypermarkets here in France are huge

I do my shopping at Auchan and I often opt for the basket because I don't have the right coin on me. They probably lose more than they save because people are buying less. Given the prevalence of contact-less payment in Europe, hypermarkets should consider dropping it.

The system makes more sense for markets the size of a Lidl or Aldi.

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

#607

Post by aembleton »

tzs wrote: post #400
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…

> they combine varieties (like flavors of granola bars) of product in the same box. This greatly reduces the shelf space required. I don't understand how this reduces shelf space, but there are no Aldi stores anywhere near here (nearest is 804.18 miles away, according to their store locator) so maybe I'm not understanding what they are doing. All I've got for comparison are the variety packs that manufactures often s…

The box they are talking about is the box that comes from the factory. By mixing all of the flavours you only need the shelf space of one box. They place more boxes behind that one.

If they needed one for each flavour, then they would need three boxes, side by side taking up three times as much space.

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

#608

Post by aembleton »

mattlondon wrote: post #471
DenisM wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, a…

There is a European sports store called decathlon that uses RFID. Put a tennis racket, running shoes, football, horse bridle, socks, ski goggles, bike tyre etc (they sell everything you can think of) in your basket, go to the till, place the basket in a blue outline at the till and it reads everything in your basket immediately. No scanning! I was really impressed. I did some prototyping with RFID a few years back an…

It's also great for returns. Their backpacks have 10 year warranties. When I returned one, they were able scan the RFID to get all the details up and refund me.

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

#609

Post by aembleton »

nswest23 wrote: post #573
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've never successfully purchased anything at aldi. Generally what happens is I'll walk in, grab what I want, proceed to the checkout, notice that there's only one register with at least 10 people in line and I'll drop whatever it is I went in to get and leave. I can't be bothered to wait that long to save 14 cents on eggs. On the other hand my wife goes there somewhat frequently and is able to buy things in a reason…

Didn't you save time on finding the eggs? I shop at Aldi and Lidl, not for the low prices but for the convenience of getting what I want and getting out quickly.

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

#610

Post by barbecue_sauce »

jacquesm wrote: post #507
c3534l wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Am I the only person who likes both American cheese and more complex artisanal european cheeses?
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