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Aldi's Barcode Strategy

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Re: Aldi's Barcode Strategy

#111

Post by mdip »

anotheryou wrote: post #2

They are so fast, that I change strategies on which line to choose. Usually less stuff to be checked out in front of you is good, but at aldi I go for least people, no matter how much stuff they loaded. This might be even more significant in germany, where many pay cash and you get every cent back in change.

Up until a few weeks ago Aldi in the United States only accepted cash, EBT or Debit.

Your strategy, especially at Aldi, is the way to go. I read an article about a decade ago that was challenging grocery store "express lane" speed. Since groceries have been using the same kinds of scanning mechanisms at every chain for a very long time, the barcodes are usually optimally placed to allow for the "scan/bag" to happen quickly[1]. The article identified that the bottleneck was more often the transaction times and not the time to ring up an order meaning that an express lane with three people in it would take longer than a lane with one person and a cart full.

Granted, this was a decade ago and many things have changed since then, including the "super store" which includes a lot of products not optimised for scanning in the first try.

[1] Cashier experience plays a roll here, as anyone who's shopped at Walmart can attest. At Aldi, though, solves this by having the barcode occupy almost the entire length of one side of the package, making it harder to miss the scanner than hit it.

Re: Aldi's Barcode Strategy

#112

Post by raimue »

konschubert wrote: post #84
germanier wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aldi Süd cashiers learned the prices. They actually choose prices that were easier to type and as few different prices as possible. Barcode scanners were installed in 2000 in anticipation of the Euro introduction. Aldi Nord cashiers learned three digit codes (around 800 ones). Scanners were only introduced in 2003 because they started to sell loose produce which is weighted at the checkout. Additionally, that allowed…

I was born in 1990 and I have never seen a checkout without a scanner. Do you have a video how the procedure looked like at Aldi Nord and Aldi Sued?

The same as it is now, just no barcode scanner. With one hand the cashier moved products from the band to the other side for you to pick up, while they typed codes into a 9-digit number pad with the other hand.

Re: Aldi's Barcode Strategy

#113

Post by dandermotj »

open-source-ux wrote: post #80
dandermotj wrote: post #20

Aldi and Lidl are blasting through other super market chains with their low cost, high quality goods. If there were ever perfect case studies for usurping incumbents in a sharply competitive market Aldi and Lidl are it.

"Aldi and Lidl are blasting through other super market chains with their low cost, high quality goods" Yes, and no. In the UK, I'm glad that Aldi and Lidl are challenging the larger supermarkets, but I would hate to see a situation where a race to the bottom on price means consumers have less choice across the entire supermarket sector. By choice I don't mean 20 brands of ketchup, I mean - to give just one example -…

From Ireland, so I know what you're talking about. I suppose my point was really that Lidl and Aldi have swept into an market over the last 10 years, where customers are hard fought for, seemingly with ease. The Tescos of the world definitely can't compete at with own brand quality or price.

I don't know about the UK, but in Ireland Aldi and Lidl are proliferating across the country. The growth is so extreme, they're hiring grads at €60k plus an Audi in order to train them up as shop managers. I mentioned case study because they've taken a fundamentally different approach and it's working. Their low cost structures across supply chain, product base, building construction and shop design are how they're carrying out this coup.

Re: Aldi's Barcode Strategy

#115

Post by anotheryou »

mrweasel wrote: post #29
chronial wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Everyone has their own strategy of how to place items onto the line to slow down the cashier at just the right moment. I am German and and I've never heard of this ^^. You just put the items on the belt in the order that they should go in the bag, then you can pack very quickly.

But the area isn't big enough. It only works if the cashier wait for you to put all your items in the belt, before start scanning. If you're still putting items on the belt when the cashier starts, the stuff will pile up on the little shelf thingy after the cash register. Now they're in the wrong order when you need to speed pack them afterwards.

at least here the belts are loooong

Re: Aldi's Barcode Strategy

#117

Post by Rzah »

I believe the reason for the tiny shelf you have to quickly empty is twofold, it means the tills take up less space, which means more shop space for stuff they can sell, and it speeds up the flow through the tills because peer pressure makes most people just pile it straight back into their empty trolley and sort it out after they've paid.

My strategy is to load everything onto the belt (heavy stuff at the front, fragile at the back), and line the now empty trolly with two or three of those strong reusable bags they sell, I can keep up with the cashier and end up with well packed bags that are easy^h^h^h^h possible to lift straight into the car, but then I'm a bit nutty when it comes to packing things, bags, cars, dishwashers.

Re: Aldi's Barcode Strategy

#118

Post by mdip »

ams6110 wrote: post #49

I'm inspired to visit Aldi's again. It's been years. I remember them as being a rather depressing very low budget ambiance, dimly lit by a few flourescent tubes with an awful color spectrum, and populated by a sad bunch of customers who looked like their next option was the local community kitchen. Kind of like the typical older Kmart that's about to go out of business.

I started shopping at Aldi because I have four children and our grocery bill was becoming unwieldy unless I spent a lot of time preparing for the visit. The local grocery stores play a game where they mark down a bunch of things "with card", but their regular prices are well over the average price at places like Walmart/Meijer. Aldi is consistently cheap and has resulted in me no longer wasting my time couponing or checking ads to make sure I'm not paying $5.00 for salad dressing that's normally $2.50 and often on sale for $1.50.

I was bugged by having to bag my own groceries, put a quarter in the cart (nearly unheard of outside of Aldi where I live) and having to pay cash (they take credit cards now). But a few things happened: about 80% of what I purchased as "store brands" were superior or dead on par with the name brand (a few were misses, a few were dramatically better). The total spend on produce and meat was significantly lower than I typically paid and I noticed when I was purchasing the produce that the quality was very consistent. My green grapes, the kids favorites, were much smaller than I typically bought but it turned out that makes them sweeter and there were fewer brown buggers in the bag.

As to the bagging, I am beginning to prefer it. They always have empty cardboard boxes and a large counter to organize things and because we intentionally grocery shop no more than once per month, I end up with a huge amount of things (we do joke, however, that it's impossible to get a combination of things at Aldi that fills the cart and results in a bill greater than $220 -- my current record highest). Organizing it in boxes according to what fridge/freezer/cupboard it will end up in makes that part of the process a lot easier (easy enough for the kids to do it without our help).

And for the quarters, this tiny little deposit results in the carts being put back in the bay. It saves them money, sure, but it has two other benefits. The bay always has carts -- I don't have to surf the parking lot during the holiday season because all are in use or scattered through the lot. And unlike every other store where more than half of the carts have problems, Aldi's are always in perfect working condition. No stuck or crooked wheel forcing me to push the thing sideways to make it go straight and I'd imagine that has cut down on damage to parked cars, too.

Re: Aldi's Barcode Strategy

#119

Post by mdip »

shostack wrote: post #102
mdip wrote: post #101

I've been an Aldi fan for more than a decade, buying almost all of my family's groceries there (four kids, it's cheap and doesn't require figuring out what is really on sale this week vs. what is really over-priced this week, or messing with Coupons). The quality of most of their products meets or exceeds that of the name brands[1] except in a few circumstances (their equivalents to Cheerios and Frosted Mini Wheats a…

The sitting thing is common in England (and perhaps elsewhere in Europe). It definitely stood out to me when I was visiting.

It's so rare here I can't think of another time I've seen it. I've always wondered why: comfortable people tend to be less grumpy and the typical cashier job involves "not leaving a very small space for a long period of time". This small space is about the size of ... a chair.

I think the perception of people standing in line is more likely to make them feel that the cashier is working slower because they're sitting[1]. Aldi's lightning quick cashiers would prove that wrong, but perception tends to be all that matters in these scenarios.

[1] People routinely over-estimate their waiting times in situations like this. This became apparent to me when talking to the helpdesk manager at my old company. He would get an e-mail from time to time from a person complaining that they were on hold for "20 minutes". The call stats for the day indicated a maximum hold time of 5 minutes.

Re: Aldi's Barcode Strategy

#120

Post by dzhiurgis »

lorenzhs wrote: post #43
germanier wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Usually they scan items faster than you can bag them. The area after the scanner is very small and takes only few items so you have to move fast. I saw below that US Aldi cashiers put the items into a grocery cart. That doesn't happen in Germany as you are expected to do that yourself. Everyone has their own strategy of how to place items onto the line to slow down the cashier at just the right moment.

The key is to just dump everything back into the cart and bag it later, on the table behind the cashiers. I sort my stuff by how well it can be stacked - pasta, cans, potatoes and the like go first, then milk, cheese, etc, and finally fruit, delicate vegetables, crisps, and other things you don't want crushed. You can just shove it all in the cart that way - I can match the cashier's speed.

AldiSort!
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