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"People who had good experiences with Aldi must be lucky."
Then I'm on a lucky streak going on about 6 years now.
I'm not saying I love everything there. I think they've got a lot of room for improvement with bread, and I'd love to see more selection of meat, but there's a reason I drive 20 minutes to Cary every week.
I'm in and out fast, I usually find something new and interesting, and I'm covered for a weeks worth of meals, usually just breaking $100.
I love the staff. There are only a handful at any given store, so I've kind of gotten to know most of them.
I love to hear Aldi get bashed and then when I tell people Aldi's owns Trader Joe's their jaws drop!! Actually, one brother owns Aldi and the TJ's. Aldi (which is a world wide company) contracts companies to "create" brands for them as TJ's does as well. It's many of the same companies that made name brands that are seen at other larger chains.
Actually, the companies that run TJ's and Aldi in the U.S. are not the same. TJ's are run by one brother's company (Aldi Nord, which also runs some of the Aldi stores in Europe), but all of the Aldi stores in the US are run by the other brother's company (Aldi Sud). Both "Aldi", but completely separate companies since they split in the 1960s. The Aldi stores run by the two companies are very similar, though, as I understand it.
I'm looking forward to checking it out, since I've never lived close enough to an Aldi to justify the drive before.
Last edited by lb27608; 12-18-2011 at 06:54 AM..
Reason: Added info
People who had good experiences with Aldi must be lucky. As far as the store brands are concerned it is a hit or miss. Like someone said if you are a savvy shopper you get name brands for cheaper prices than store brands (obviously that means trusted quality that doesn't change) with better customer experience (not paying for carts, rude staff, insufficient stock, no bagging, debit/cash only etc etc). Example: Last week there was a deal on Cauliflower for $0.99 and the size was so small that compared to the price/size at Kroger etc you would get a better deal at Kroger. I am not advocating Kroger but Kroger will give you gas discount and rewards for money you spend there.
That's great. Now tell Kroger to quit closing stores, and maybe some of us can shop there again. (RIP Wake Forest Kroger).
That's great. Now tell Kroger to quit closing stores, and maybe some of us can shop there again. (RIP Wake Forest Kroger).
They would automatically stop closing stores when people become savvy shoppers and don't fall into the traps conveniently laid by many stores.
I was reading an article of how stores lure and trap customers into buying stuff by just advertising things like 2/$5 instead of $2.50 each. As long as that is true we see stores with cheap tricks thriving and other stores closing.
Aldi advertises with 1 or 2 loss leaders to make people into thinking everything there is cheap. Ollie's in Cary is one example of such stores
"People who had good experiences with Aldi must be lucky."
Then I'm on a lucky streak going on about 6 years now.
I'm not saying I love everything there. I think they've got a lot of room for improvement with bread, and I'd love to see more selection of meat, but there's a reason I drive 20 minutes to Cary every week.
I'm in and out fast, I usually find something new and interesting, and I'm covered for a weeks worth of meals, usually just breaking $100.
I love the staff. There are only a handful at any given store, so I've kind of gotten to know most of them.
I don't understand driving 40 minutes (gas isn't cheap these days either) for the right to not utilize coupons and/or double coupons while having a poor selection where you may or may not be able to purchase what you want or need. That is brand loyalty though so i will give you that much.
They advertise one or two loss leader items where hardly anybody save anything on them even if you are lucky get that stuff when you get there
This is patently false.
I had some time today, so I did a little research. I visited 3 stores today, and I checked prices on 51 items. Aldi, Lowe's Foods and Food Lion. If anyone cares to see the entire list I will gladly post it. Whenever possible I picked the store brand, but if a name brand item was on sale cheaper I went with that. There were cases where there was no store brand equivalent (neither Lowes nor Food Lion had store brand hot dogs for example).
Aldi did not have the lowest price on every item, but there were so few I will post the exceptions:
Lowe's had 1 item that was cheaper. 2 lb. box of store brand spaghetti was 2/$3 vs $1.59 at Aldi. This did require you have the store card.
Food Lion had 4 items that were cheaper. 12 oz. box of Corn Check cereal, their store brand was $1.99 vs Aldi $2.19. They had a 4 for $5 fudge brownie box that beat Aldi's price by 4 cents. (card required) They had a 16 oz. package of pork sausage for $1.89, which beat Aldi's $2.29 and lastly a celery...uh, not a stalk, but like 1 plant, don't know what you'd call it, but they had it for .88 vs. Aldi's .99.
Grand total for each store:
Aldi: $90.91
Lowe's: $141.48
Food Lion: $128.00
I know some of y'all spend a lot of time with the coupons, but remember, the coupons are usually for name brand goods, and these are 90% store brand prices.
I don't understand driving 40 minutes (gas isn't cheap these days either) for the right to not utilize coupons and/or double coupons while having a poor selection where you may or may not be able to purchase what you want or need. That is brand loyalty though so i will give you that much.
I was the king of coupons before a friend turned me on to Aldi. Well, to be fair I wasn't one of these "Extreme" couponers, but I had a plastic box organizer, and I clipped every weekend. I don't miss it a bit.
I don't see the poor selection argument at all either. How many brands of ketchup do I need? As long as it is good the answer is 1. It is pretty rare that I have to go somewhere else for something I need. I did it today though; needed some green salsa and Aldi doesn't have one, that is true. Rare, but it happens.
They would automatically stop closing stores when people become savvy shoppers and don't fall into the traps conveniently laid by many stores.
I was reading an article of how stores lure and trap customers into buying stuff by just advertising things like 2/$5 instead of $2.50 each. As long as that is true we see stores with cheap tricks thriving and other stores closing.
Aldi advertises with 1 or 2 loss leaders to make people into thinking everything there is cheap. Ollie's in Cary is one example of such stores
Kroger advertises 2 for $-- sales all the time, too
Kroger advertises 2 for $-- sales all the time, too
The truth is that Aldi does NOT do promotional pricing. They ADVERTISE their everyday low price.
The megachains, of which Kroger's is the largest, is doing the promotional pricing every week. Their latest game is the 10 for $10 deals.
If the detractors want to say that Aldi:
1) Offers less variety (fewer SKUs);
2) Has fewer employees or longer check-out lines.
3) Does not have a floral department, bakery, meat cutters on site.
4) Does not accept credit cards.
5) Does not accept coupons.
they are correct.
But when it comes to price and stock turnover, there is not a chain in the US or Europe that comes close.
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