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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

#621

Post by stjohnswarts »

usr1106 wrote: post #442
usr1106 wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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...

Don't copy that floppy!

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

#622

Post by stjohnswarts »

jvagner wrote: post #584
zhte415 wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not? Cash is divisible, readily accepted, and anonymous.

And needs to be acquired and carried. I don’t like coins, the weight and noise of them. I also don’t carry things in my pockets. The fees associated with debit card transactions don’t land on me, so...

It does land on you via higher prices. Nothing in life is free.

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

#623

Post by stjohnswarts »

burfog wrote: post #200
TallGuyShort wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a few corrals throughout the parking lot where customers are expected to deposit their carts. The store then has someone who goes around from time to time to retrieve a row of them and push it back to the front of the store. It's often a job given to somebody mentally handicapped who can't do a lot of other things at the store.

Publix gives the job to the bagger/loader, who is usually a friendly person. This person bags your groceries, then offers to take them to your car and help you load them into your car. If you accept the help, then as they return back to the store they bring in the carts.

I never take them up on their offer, I would rather leave the service for the elderly, handicapped, or extremely pregnant women.

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

#624

Post by stjohnswarts »

xvedejas wrote: post #107
hobofan wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> depositing a quarter for a cart eliminates the need to pay people to collect carts What's the alternative? Growing up in Germany I've literally never seen it any other way.

In the US I have never had to deposit any money to use a cart. I'm not sure how that would even work, is it some automated machine that spits out a cart?

not sure why 10 people needed to answer your question lol

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

#625

Post by stjohnswarts »

Jun8 wrote: post #113
hobofan wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> depositing a quarter for a cart eliminates the need to pay people to collect carts What's the alternative? Growing up in Germany I've literally never seen it any other way.

In most supermarkets in the US you just leave your cart in the parking lot after you load up your trunk. They have people who then come and collect the carts.

No it's a common courtesy to put them in a coral or return them to the entrance (if it's a small lot). You aren't supposed just leave them in the parking lot just drift and bang into people's cars and block spaces. That's just lazy.

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

#626

Post by kachurovskiy »

tannhaeuser wrote: post #594
kachurovskiy wrote: post #541

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is my experience as well in Germany. Fruits and vegetables are also quite tasteless. Some common items are simply missing. I'm afraid same will happen in US once the initial hype and attention to the details wear off and ROI considerations kick in. Or maybe it will work out great - Trader Joe's is an amazing example of that.

FYI: those looking for quality vegetables in Germany buy at the "market" (traditional place with sellers and producers coming with trailers once or twice a week). Maybe not anymore in Berlin, where this tradition may have been stopped during the time when the city was isolated from its surrounding agricultural suppliers (west), or vegetables were only available through "Konsum"-style socialist unit stores, if at all…

On our farmer's market prices are usually through the roof. We buy at Lidl where cheap produce is ok and there are also more expensive but still reasonably priced tastier options for most items.

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

#627

Post by jvagner »

stjohnswarts wrote: post #622
jvagner wrote: post #584

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And needs to be acquired and carried. I don’t like coins, the weight and noise of them. I also don’t carry things in my pockets. The fees associated with debit card transactions don’t land on me, so...

It does land on you via higher prices. Nothing in life is free.

Actually, the cost of handling cash, for stores, is more than debit.

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

#629

Post by user5994461 »

starbugs wrote: post #449
user5994461 wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>> 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...

You're giving undue credit to wallmart. It was already illegal and it's been for a long time. I can find articles on Aldi, Lidl and Wallmart paying fines for that in 2000. My German is not good enough to browse the laws.

It seems prohibited in Spain since 1991, whereas France is at least 1986. https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichTexte.do;jsessionid=952...

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

#630

Post by DenisM »

albertshin wrote: post #385
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…

Is checkout speed really limiting factor in grocery store growth though? Like are people that sensitive to the few extra minutes (at most) at the checkout counter they'll switch where they shop? I personally can't see myself switching from my local store even if it takes like 3 more minutes to check out. Maybe I'm just lucky though to think it's 3 minutes extra at most?...

Sometimes I just leave the store if the line is too long. More often I just don't go, knowing it's going to be too long a wait this time of the day.

Perhaps I am an impatient outlier, but whatever the profitable wait threshold is, it could be maintained with fewer cashiers if checkout were faster.

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