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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

#191

Post by convivialdingo »

yardie wrote: post #82
wvh wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think I just started to understand why the US has such a low unemployment rate but so many are paid minimal wage...

The US is the epitome of bullshit, bureaucratic jobs. Medical billing, for example, is someone taking the list of procedures a medical office performs and plugs that into a computer so that the "codes" the office uses can match the "codes" the healthcare provider uses. I know what you're thinking, that describes a LUT (lookup table). Yes, you would be correct, a LUT is an actual profession in the USA.

Even more crazy is that the reason these jobs persist is so that hospitals can maximize the profit and the likelihood of being covered by insurance.

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

#192

Post by bunderbunder »

lostapathy wrote: post #184
bunderbunder wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least at the Aldi I shop at, they don't even have that. The cashier is at the very end of the line; the next thing past them is a shopping cart, and scanned items get placed directly into it. When you're done paying, you wheel that cart away, leave the one you had in its place, and go to a separate counter where you can bag or box your stuff. If you had a basket, you throw the basket in the cart, the cashier drops…

"scanned items get placed directly into it." More like thrown into it - or if you're lucky, dropped into it, at my local Aldi. You learn not to put canned goods ahead of bread on the belt so that cans don't land on your bread.

Aldi staff are pretty high-performing at what they're paid to do. So much so that successfully shopping at Aldi may be even more skilled a profession than working there.

It's part of the charm. :)

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

#193

Post by FabHK »

bunderbunder wrote: post #168
thinkling wrote: post #148

Another thing: I'm guessing they don't have paid staff to bag groceries for customers like many US stores, but what they may have that's common in Europe but unknown in the US: the boat-tiller-like divider in the conveyor belt space past the cashier. Customer A's things get rung up and continue to side A. When done with customer A, the cashier shoves the divider across so the belt now takes customer B's stuff to side…

At least at the Aldi I shop at, they don't even have that. The cashier is at the very end of the line; the next thing past them is a shopping cart, and scanned items get placed directly into it. When you're done paying, you wheel that cart away, leave the one you had in its place, and go to a separate counter where you can bag or box your stuff. If you had a basket, you throw the basket in the cart, the cashier drops…

And social rules have involved to minimise delays:

0. You place the groceries on the band "in the right order", ie heavy/solid goods first, light/fragile things last (so everything can just be shoved into the cart)

1. When your turn is coming up, you wait until the previous customer has removed their cart, and quickly put yours in place.

2. Next you help the cashier shoving the groceries into your cart, maybe arranging them a bit.

3. As the end of your purchases approaches, you prepare to pay (while the cashier is still scanning your last items), pull cash/card from the wallet, hand it over, and boom, take your cart away while the cashier starts scanning the next customer's items. (This works even faster if you are not alone.)

4. GOTO 1.

I miss Aldi.

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

#194

Post by FabHK »

everyone wrote: post #122
NeedMoreTea wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> -they combine varieties (like flavors of granola bars) of product in the same box. This greatly reduces the shelf space required. This is the only thing that fails about Aldi. Let's say you want their Chicken Tikka sauce. The mixed boxes mean good chance you won't see it as Tikka always goes first. You go through the whole 6 boxes of inventory, and yep, all sold - the three spaces in every box. Same for pizza - one…

I wonder does that lead to a lot of waste? Eg. the 30% of the box thats the flavour that no-one (at this shop) buys, goes off and is dumped, for every box. Maybe the ratios are determined by their global sales, who knows. You would think that it would be advantageous for each shop to tweak its own ratios.

It doesn't get dumped, some customers just buy their second preference.

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

#195

Post by osrec »

bunderbunder wrote: post #183
osrec wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well they aren't really for sale or rent either. Not sure what your point is?

Maybe not intentionally, but it was a pretty good pun.

Pun? I missed it - ELI5 please!

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

#197

Post by rayiner »

yardie wrote: post #82
wvh wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think I just started to understand why the US has such a low unemployment rate but so many are paid minimal wage...

The US is the epitome of bullshit, bureaucratic jobs. Medical billing, for example, is someone taking the list of procedures a medical office performs and plugs that into a computer so that the "codes" the office uses can match the "codes" the healthcare provider uses. I know what you're thinking, that describes a LUT (lookup table). Yes, you would be correct, a LUT is an actual profession in the USA.

I’ve never encountered an example of a real “bullshit job” (but have encountered a lot of ignorance about what different jobs entail.) Dealing with medical billing codes is not just a table lookup. It’s actually quite fuzzy and some judgment is required because the codes don’t match 1:1. (Not does the procedure the doctor actually did match perfectly to any code.) (And you can be criminally prosecuted for not doing it correctly if you’re talking about Medicare or Medicaid.)

Grocery bagging, likewise, is hardly a bullshit job. I shop at whole foods precisely so I don’t have to bag my own groceries. (And a good bagger can do it far better than I can.)

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

#198

Post by HeWhoLurksLate »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #132
NeedMoreTea wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> -they combine varieties (like flavors of granola bars) of product in the same box. This greatly reduces the shelf space required. This is the only thing that fails about Aldi. Let's say you want their Chicken Tikka sauce. The mixed boxes mean good chance you won't see it as Tikka always goes first. You go through the whole 6 boxes of inventory, and yep, all sold - the three spaces in every box. Same for pizza - one…

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…

So, to sum up these complaints- retail companies have a lot of data at their hands- they just need to look at it and do something with it.

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

#199

Post by usr1106 »

ThJ wrote: post #4

Most of the stuff they're doing seems to be entirely commonplace for the supermarket chains we have here in Norway. The coins for the carts. Stacking crates instead of individual items. Training every employee for everything (it's not uncommon to see a store manager operating the cash register). Expecting customers to fill their own bags and charging for those bags. Smaller selection. The only unique part seems to be…

> On a related note: Lidl tried and failed to get a foothold here in Norway with similar tactics. It didn't work. Perhaps because our mainstream store chains are already so similar to Lidl, except our domestic chains offer actual name brand products and the Lidl stores didn't, and I think that's why they failed.

I don't think that sounds like the most likely reason. I have seen Lidl's arrival to Finland. And at least with respect to prices Norway and Finland are very similar, namely exorbitantly expensive if you compare to central Europe.

Also in Finland price competition did not use to be very fierce. They are only few players and it was an unwritten agreement that business is more comfortable to do without any price wars, consumers pay...

So when Lidl came there was massive pressure on suppliers not to sell to Lidl. If you sell to Lidl (with initially some 20-30 stores) you will not sell to us any longer (with many hundreds of stores). For several years Lidl had to ship nearly every product from central Europe. Which was not only expensive, but also were the products partly exotic to the consumers. For me as German living in Finland Lidl was better than the finest specialty shop, lots of products you could not buy anywhere else and very cheap. After a couple of years the supplier boycott started to fade away, consumer acceptance grew and my specialty shop was no longer :(

Could it have been a similar story in Norway?

Finland was also hit hard by a recession from 2008 - 2017. I understand Norway was doing much better these years and salaries are high. So the demand for low price options might have not been so wide-spread, making their market entry even more difficult.

(Edit: added a "without" to fix logic error)

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

#200

Post by burfog »

TallGuyShort wrote: post #108
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.

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.
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