How would you explain shopping at Aldi to a stranger?

Lucy Kippist
June 12, 2013
news.com.au

EVER tried to explain the experience of shopping at Aldi – especially that crazy middle aisle?

Don’t pretend you don’t know the one. It’s right in the centre of the store and filled to the brim with the most random combination of products imaginable. You couldn’t make it up.

Bunk beds nestle alongside packets of Yorkshire tea and Polish jam, while camping stoves, microwaves and chocolate TV snacks compete for space in the wire containers.

My investigations take me to a local Aldi store three times over the long weekend. Here’s what I discover.

Mornings are the domain of the local Greek grandmothers. They buy shortbread and milk and a handful of mandarins. So cheap they make your eyes water.

The late afternoon is family hour and the freezer section is hit hard with enormous bags of potato wedges and frozen peas are piled into the bottom of trolleys.

And, by 6pm, the store is bustling with the sound of bottles clinking, as the booze aisle comes into its own.

The man in the line ahead of me places some sausages, a carton of milk, a packet of nappies and a bottle of whiskey on the check-out belt. In any other store this would be an unlikely combination, but this is Aldi – so we just smile at each other.

Spend long enough thinking about it and you’ll quickly realise it’s precisely the random nature of Aldi’s shelves that keeps you going back there.

A recent article in The Daily Mail claimed the cheap booze was the biggest drawcard for Aldi’s UK customers.

Alcohol was also believed to responsible for the recent development of stores in more affluent British suburbs where well-to-do women in designer jeans, loafers and blow-dried hair were hitting up the cheap gin. Oh, and the 3.69 pound bottles of Spanish red were considered a real steal, too.

The evolution of our Aldi supermarkets has been more random. An Aldi spokesperson told news.com.au that after the first store opened in Bankstown, New South Wales in 2001, newer stores cropped up whenever secure sites were found.
Alcohol sales started in Victorian stores in 2003, and according to the marketing department the bestseller so far is the French champagne, white, Monsigny Brut – just $24.95 a bottle.

The other more popular items can be found in the dairy compartment and the baby-care range.

A quick office poll of Aldi shoppers has confirmed these two things to be true, however the chocolate selection definitely gets my vote.

There are also plenty of things not to like about the Aldi shopping experience. It’s near impossible to keep up with the check-out person and pack up your bag. And why do they sit down?

The lack of product choice also grates. Some people have said they find it easier to have less choice, but what if you really just want that particular brand you always buy?

The long queues are another bugbear. At peak shopping times my local store has people queuing halfway down the aisles.

But you can’t argue with the prices. It really is cheap as chips. Obscure German chips, probably. Even consumer watchdog Choice gives Aldi the thumbs up with head of media, Tom Godfrey describing the “Aldi effect” as an ultimately positive one for consumers.

However, Mr Godfrey was also quick to point out that the store is ultimately limited in its geographic coverage and Aldi’s 1000-odd products are “minuscule in comparison to the tens of thousands of products stocked by the major chains”.

So just how do they keep their prices so cheap?

“We concentrate on selling a select range of exclusive brands and focus on keeping our operations simple,” the Aldi spokesperson said.

“We can keep our prices low because our business model has been refined over many years and our streamlined operation means we can deliver hard to beat value.”

Which leaves the only real challenge in working out where everything is.

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