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I feel quite a few of those things are pretty standard in Europe, so I wonder if ALDI is just exporting european practices to the US. "Coin for a cart" e.g. is
by hannob 7y ago
I feel quite a few of those things are pretty standard in Europe, so I wonder if ALDI is just exporting european practices to the US. "Coin for a cart" e.g. is almost normal. I noticed that barcodes on all sides of a product is becoming more common, particularly in stores that allow self-scan (ALDI doesn't, but it obviously makes things easier also for customers that self-scan).
- jaabe 7y agoThat was my thought as well. I live in Denmark, I think ALDI is one of our least efficient supermarket chains which is why they’ve had to fill the niche of low-quality-low-price. I never knew American supermarkets were so terrible. I mean, you read about the Amazon grocery stores and get the picture of Europe being far behind.
- iforgotpassword 7y agoI think ALDI being low quality is mostly a myth, just assumed because of their low prices. The only thing I don't but there is meat, greatly prefer the local butcher.
- glenndebacker 7y agoIn some cases the cheaper Aldi products is the same as the more expensive product from another store. When I was younger there was no difference between olé’s chocolate and Leo with the exception of the package. It was the same taste and factory producing them.
- chrisan 7y agoIf you have a thing for Girl Scout cookies, the Aldi generics taste just the same for a fraction of the price
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- imhoguy 7y agoThere are two ALDIs as article mentions and they differ in quality: https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/63hce5/aldi_nord_blue_vs_aldi_sued_orange_in_europe/ https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/63hce5/aldi_nord_bl... Aldi Süd seems to be more preffered, however I personally prefer Lidl which is based on similar efficiency concepts.
- wolfgke 7y ago> There are two ALDIs as article mentions and they differ in quality At least in Germany, where there exist both Aldi and Aldi Süd, quality is not a trait that people would claim that these two differ (they would rather say that the difference lies in assortment).
- imhoguy 7y agoYou are right, I worded it wrongly. Unfortunatelly I can't edit or delete my prev post.
- taneq 7y agoAccording to wikipedia: > Internationally, Aldi Nord operates in Denmark, France, the Benelux countries, Portugal, Spain and Poland, while Aldi Süd operates in Ireland, Great Britain, Hungary, Switzerland, Australia, China, Italy, Austria and Slovenia. Both Aldi Nord and Aldi Süd also operate in the United States with 1,600 stores as of 2017.
- jedrek 7y agoAldi Denmark is the worst Aldi I've ever been to.
- kzrdude 7y agoEuro here, I don't think chasing the bottom of the barrel is worth celebrating. Also, Germany has the worst standard of grocery stores (I'd prefer grocery stores in general from neighboring France, Switzerland etc) due to their assortment and quality of products - and Aldi and Lidl are responsible for that.
- skrause 7y agoCheap medium-quality food is not really just an Aldi/Lidl thing, it's culturally a German thing. Germans just don't care about food quality as much as e.g. French people, so competition values price over quality. I'm German and also this way, that's why I'm generally happy to shop in Aldi/Lidl.
- Amygaz 7y agoThat would explain why Aldi can be successful in the USA. Even after more than a decade living in more than one states, and I am still not used to the generally poor quality of fresh produce. Seasonal gardening and local farmers help, but it's not cheap at all. I grew with up with seasonal farmer's market having higher quality at the same or even slightly lower price than the grocery store, but not in the US, higher quality but at fancy price, although they receive the same subsidies and it does cost them that much more.
- secfirstmd 7y agoIt's also diet and food choices. For example I shop in Aldi here in Ireland and this week a standard problem happened. I went with a list of ingredients to make an Indian curry from scratch and only managed to get about 70 percent of what I needed there. The same thing has happened before when doing a Thai or Chinese meal. Comparatively a normal sizwd Tesco would nearly always have everything. In particular Aldi would have a lot less options for things like spices etc. One thing I do find funny though is the Lidl (and Aldi) practice of selling loads of random items in one or two of there aisles. Many is the funny story I or friends have of going into the shop for milk and bread and coming out with a unicycle, power welder and night vision goggles instead :)
- anigbrowl 7y agoAldi made quite a lot of those things standard in Europe.
- krn 7y agoThis. Aldi was founded in 1946, and many of its efficiency-oriented practices were later adopted by other supermarkets in Europe[1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldi
- jacquesm 7y agoAlbert Heijn started the whole self-serving thing in 1952 (and was founded in 1887!). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Heijn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Heijn
- apexalpha 7y agoAnd in the chart in the article you can see that they (AHold) are really big in the US, too. Didn't know that.
- anovikov 7y agoHaha except in EU it's not a quarter, it's 2 euros! And tons of carts still hang around abandoned with 2-coins in them.
- tastroder 7y agoIn Germany most newer carts take 50ct, 1€, and 2€ coins. The older ones took 1€ (or 1DM before the introduction of the Euro). Abandoned carts on the premises aren't much of a thing anywhere I lived except for maybe the odd lazy person with a plastic coin in it (some.people carry those around e.g. on their key chain for when they don't have coins on hand).
- rjsw 7y agoThe plastic coins are given out by the shops themselves. I usually keep one in my pockets, not really out of laziness, I just don't use coins for much these days.
- wiredfool 7y agoAny of the ones that take a 1 eur coin will take a 20c one as well. Which is good, because there are always a bunch of them in the cup holders.
- mft_ 7y agoI’ve never seen this anywhere, ever? And honestly, if there was two euros going for simply moving a trolley back to its parking zone, I suspect you would have shoppers who found it worth doing that for all of the free carts, let alone people with less money coming in to collect.
- eeZah7Ux 7y agoIndeed. The only few cases are for trolleys left kilometers away.
- layoutIfNeeded 7y agoSometimes there are homeless people loitering in the parking lots offering to take your empty cart to pocket the coin in them.