Hopefully Aldi doesn’t do this, I know Trader Joe’s doesn’t.
Aldi, a brutally efficient grocery chain, is upending America's supermarkets
261–270 of 653 posts
Re: Aldi, a brutally efficient grocery chain, is upending America's supermarkets
#262Earlier quoted context omitted.
What's so weird is that all those sound rudimentary rather than innovative to my european ears.
Yep. The most notable thing about Aldi (and similar competitor Lidl) from a UK perspective is that they pay above average for comparable supermarket jobs and reduce staffing accordingly. But I remember putting coins into slots for a trolley (and reclaiming them!) when I was young enough to be sitting in the child seat nearly 30 years ago, long before Aldi was a factor in the UK market. Is this really an innovative co…
Re: Aldi, a brutally efficient grocery chain, is upending America's supermarkets
#263Re: Aldi, a brutally efficient grocery chain, is upending America's supermarkets
#264Wait untill you get Aldi mobile provider. In my country i pay 10eur a month for unlimited calls+sms and 20gb of data. For 15eur you get same but 50gb data. Simplest cell provider, no hiden costs, and everything is resolved online. They do not have offices where you register. You just but a sim card. And then they can either charge your bank account or you buy vouchers at Aldi registers - printed on the receipt paper.…
Re: Aldi, a brutally efficient grocery chain, is upending America's supermarkets
#265Earlier quoted context omitted.
Carts are free at Aldi too. You just put a coin in to release a cart, and when you return your cart, you get your coin back.
They aren’t free if you don’t have a quarter on hand.
Re: Aldi, a brutally efficient grocery chain, is upending America's supermarkets
#266Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Same thing happens here, except there is always a loyalty card special on some items. If you want, say, a 12-pack of Vanilla Coke Zero, well, you have to buy three of them at once to avoid being reamed at the register. But you had better get there right after it's restocked, because it's always "Buy 2, get 1 free" or worse, "Buy 2, get 2 free," and they never stock more than three or four cartons at a time. Every tim…
If they can get you to come into the store and not buy the soda, that's a great outcome. Of course, if that happens too often, you'll stop going, so it's a balance. They've probably figured out how much to stock to maximize profits -- which might seem nonsensical if you were thinking they were trying to maximize soda sales.
Re: Aldi, a brutally efficient grocery chain, is upending America's supermarkets
#267Earlier quoted context omitted.
The main reason I have always heard mentioned why they have a deposit is that shopping carts are really expensive and they don't want people to take them home, have teens do silly things with them etc. Maybe that's not so much a problem in the US, where I imagine supermarkets may not be in the city center but mostly reachable by car and thus less foot traffic to take the carts? But maybe the deposit here in Europe is…
> The main reason I have always heard mentioned why they have a deposit is that shopping carts are really expensive and they don't want people to take them home, have teens do silly things with them etc. I'm sure the deposit is just to encourage people to put the carts back where they belong, reducing the amount of work staff need to do outside the store. If you're going to steal a shopping cart, the quarter won't fa…
Re: Aldi, a brutally efficient grocery chain, is upending America's supermarkets
#268I guess I'm a weirdo who likes shopping there. Compared to Kroger or HEB I usually walk out of Aldi with a bill 50% cheaper than the other stores. We have our own bags and a picnic like basket thing we keep in the truck for Aldi stops. Yes it's "generic" but my uncle worked for a big food company that made big brand food and "generic" is often just a label change over the brand name. I can see why the rich people wou…
> 50% cheaper Hmm, more like 25% cheaper, imo. But I guess it depends what you need to buy and if you go after sales/specials and what not. Aldi does have great prices, for sure. I still love HEB though. Their bakery section is amazing (especially the fresh warm tortillas), their produce and meat is excellent, and the prices are still pretty good. HEB also has prices online with specific aisle locations for many prod…
Re: Aldi, a brutally efficient grocery chain, is upending America's supermarkets
#269I think Aldi is the best supermarket in the world, but it certainly is an acquired taste :)
Re: Aldi, a brutally efficient grocery chain, is upending America's supermarkets
#270I'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…
> 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.
This thing was introduced in France, because the French customers had another attitude to it and that got extrapolated by the huge French hipermarché concept.