201–210 of 274 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Its not really. Most people would get it from the "asian shop", but many "German" supermarkets have a small shelf for "international" stuff like asian noodles, taco shells and russian stuff.
Seriously, Ghee is Butterschmalz
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 -…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
in the Southern US I am more surprised by the great quality of their fresh food. While I hit up mostly fruit the vegetables are good too; best damn watermellon I have had short of a farm stop they also sell really odd stuff at times seemingly totally random too. Once I found bird baths there and another week an four post canopy
> they also sell really odd stuff at times seemingly totally random too. Once I found bird baths there and another week an four post canopy They buy those items in large amounts very cheap. People love those "bargains" and can't stop to buy it, even if they don't need it at the moment. And they are not randomly, they are seasonal and they do repeat every year. In Germany you get a weekly flyer for those bargain items…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If I remember correctly, the codes were the prices. Which meant they could not have to products at the exact same price, and had quite a few products at strange prices like DM4.32 (while almost all competitors had their kitchen-psychology prices of 9.99).
Each product in the database will have a barcode (GTIN, EAN) and a PLU which is often a 4-6 digit code assigned internally. The PLUs are used as lookup codes when the barcode fails (usually because the product is not entered in the DB). The codes afaik were never prices, you would use prices for that.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What the article doesn't mention: Aldi optimizing the speed of their cashiers is nothing new. The northern Aldi ("Aldi Nord") for a long time had three-digit article codes for every product that cashiers had to know by heart--which also meant that they couldn't have more than 1000 different products. In fact, that system was so efficient that they completely switched to bardcodes only in 2002 as they didn't see any a…
I wonder if there is some information theory paper to be written here. On one hand you want the most common products sold to have low Komogorov complexity codes (111, 123, 147, …). Then there is the question of the distance between similar products and similar codes: is it better to have similarly priced products have similar codes, so that errors don't amount to much in the final tally, or to space out similar goods…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is so true. I worked as a supermarket checkout operator at a large Australian chain of supermarkets for a few years, and the PoS systems were redone while I was there. Before were old Fujitsu machines running an old version of OS/2 with mechanical keyboards. After overhaul, Windows xp embedded machines with touch screens. The touch screens were a massive step backwards, especially when it came to punching in pro…
The touch screens allow us (I work in backend retail) to push updates to hundreds of shops across a region without having to update those mechanical keyboards. It's a huge benefit to the industry. Before, when a new feature was added we had to send a human technician out to every one of those shops. Or get the shop managers to replace the key, or sticker the key. You can see how much easier it is to push updates over…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"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 -…
Shouldn't the milk farmers who can't meet cost of production leave the sector instead of guilting people into supporting their lifestyle?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is so true. I worked as a supermarket checkout operator at a large Australian chain of supermarkets for a few years, and the PoS systems were redone while I was there. Before were old Fujitsu machines running an old version of OS/2 with mechanical keyboards. After overhaul, Windows xp embedded machines with touch screens. The touch screens were a massive step backwards, especially when it came to punching in pro…
I've noticed this as well. I worked as a grocery store checker in college, and was consistently one of the most efficient in the store. Yet now when I use self-checkout machines I feel like I'm fighting them every step of the way. Yes, I scanned the item. Yes, I put it in the bag. No seriously, it's in the goddamn bag.
In Spain however I've noticed they get around this by having one person with remote access to every machine, so if there is problem with your bag or they need to verify your age it's all done from one point rather than an individual member of staff having to intervene in each case.
It's a lot better system.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Each product in the database will have a barcode (GTIN, EAN) and a PLU which is often a 4-6 digit code assigned internally. The PLUs are used as lookup codes when the barcode fails (usually because the product is not entered in the DB). The codes afaik were never prices, you would use prices for that.
You might be mixing up Aldi Nord and Sued. In Aldi Sued they really just typed in the prices.
I wonder why a large retailer like Walmart doesn't start incentivizing their suppliers to do this as well? Some math. -Assume a fixed 120 customers an hour -Assume each customer buys 20 items -1 minute for customer to pay + 1 minute total scanning time for all items = 30 customers / cashier / hour (4 cashiers needed) -Assuming additional barcodes double the scanning time (seems reasonable to me from my experiences at…