Aldi launches Testers Club

Eli Greenblat
OCTOBER 27, 2015
THE AUSTRALIAN
Aldi is set to ramp up the quality and breadth of its product range in Australia by launching a ‘‘Testers Club’’ that will be a world-first for the discount chain, as it chips away at Woolworths’ and Coles’ dominance of middle-market shoppers.
The German supermarket chain has chosen Australia as the first market to roll out the Aldi Testers Club, where selected customers will be sent free groceries for a year and asked to provide feedback on the price, quality and usefulness of the various products.
Such was the excitement among shoppers when the Aldi Testers Club was launched ­quietly in August that it was flooded with more than 17,000 applications, which Aldi pared back to 100 members.
Over the course of the year, testers will receive 10 Aldi grocery products per quarter to review. Testers are asked to rate at least 50 per cent of the products they receive as part of their ­annual membership.
The Aldi Testers Club is a first for the global German-based supermarket chain and has not been launched in the 18 other countries it operates in.
“The Aldi Testers Club is a new product-testing and rating program that is unique to the Australian market,” a spokeswoman for Aldi told The Australian.
“The club was created to enable Aldi to receive valuable customer feedback, to inform product development across our grocery range.
“As we expand, it is our priority to remain nimble and responsive to the evolving behaviours of our customers.”
The effort to improve its product range and quality comes as Aldi pushes hard against markets traditionally dominated by heavyweights Woolworths and Coles.
The three chains are now fighting it out for middle-market customers in the nation’s $90 billion grocery sector.
Aldi is making a strong pitch for shoppers higher up the income scale by offering quality groceries, more branded goods and a new experimental store format that gives greater prominence to fresh food with better store lighting and improved ambience.
Aldi is also preparing a more aggressive store rollout over the next 12 months.
In September Aldi contacted its key food and grocery suppliers, telling them to prepare for a huge run-up in demand for their products as the discount supermarket chain planned to open as many as 80 stores across Australia next year, its biggest store rollout in a single calendar year since arriving in Australia in 2001.
Aldi will open an additional 40 stores across the eastern seaboard over the next year to match its previously disclosed push into South Australia and Western Australia with 40 stores across the two states.
Aldi management believes it can hit 65 new stores in Australia next year, against its record to date of 40 store openings in one year in 2013. The German retailer thinks WA has enough of a population to support ultimately 60-70 stores, while SA could eventually be home to 40-50 stores.
Aldi now controls about 10 per cent of the eastern states grocery market and wants a similar slice across central and Western Australia.
In a recent submission to the senate inquiry into corporate tax avoidance and minimisation, Aldi revealed it had a booming business in Australia that had doubled sales and pre-tax profit since 2010.
Aldi’s financial accounts covering 2010 to 2013 disclosed a huge lift in profitability over that period that has seen sales leap from $3.14bn to $6bn and its Australian pre-tax earnings accelerate from $121 million to $261m.