ALDI to add 70 new stores by next year

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CalItalian
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Re: ALDI to add 70 new stores by next year

Post by CalItalian »

Romr123 wrote: May 31st, 2022, 5:20 am We shopped a fair bit at the Palm Springs location (Ramon/Gene Autry) all winter and it was broadly comparable to any second-ring suburban location of the same vintage (built within the last 5 years) near us in Detroit...about 95% of the SKUs were seemingly the same...perhaps a bit more general merchandise, perhaps slightly slower moving in California, but I suspect it may be nothing more than being merchandised from Batavia, IL rather than closer to California.

They do seem to have a base Hispanic food assortment at that location (which we rarely see around Detroit, but I imagine is all over south side Chicago or in rural western Michigan) and a few more pre-made grab and go sandwiches in the refrigerator case (which need to be sourced closer to the region anyway) but that location doesn't strike me as being deficient in any way (other than parking lot layout which is a pain in the a@@ but that's certainly not their fault).
ALL of the Hispanic foods at Aldi are brand names. That's one big difference vs. the rest of the store. The prices are not really competitive vs. other retailers, though. Most of the locations I've seen either have an endcap or a part of the end of one aisle dedicated to these products. The assortment isn't extensive but it is pretty decent considering the size of the store. I have not seen them do as extensive an Asian section. They should do that as well in California.
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Re: ALDI to add 70 new stores by next year

Post by CalItalian »

storewanderer wrote: May 30th, 2022, 8:51 pm Having been in some Aldi units in the midwest and then in California I have to say I am not impressed with the operation in California. The stores I am seeing are a mess, dirty, the employees are terrible, and pricing seems 20% higher than it would be in the midwest.

The stores do seem to have decent foot traffic but transactions look smaller than I typically saw in the midwest.

I don't know if my memory is off but my perception is these California Stores have a lower variety of basic food SKUs than what I remember in the midwest.

Conversely the "Aldi Finds" general merchandise areas seem to have more items than I remember seeing in the midwest. The "Aldi Finds" areas are full of general merchandise that is not moving and are a disaster; they need to significantly downsize those areas or put more food into them. To make matters worse the stores manually mark these items down with handwritten shelf tags then the prices do not scan at the register. Getting the price corrected and how that went (cashier refusing to do anything, charging my card full price, manager who took 4 minutes to come up front then argue with me about the error rather than walk about 20 steps and check the price) reinforced my general opinion that this Aldi operation in California is very broken and not off to a great start at all.

Also- do these California Aldi units EVER open more than one cash register? Every location I have been into, only has one register open, it does not matter how long the line gets.

Lidl would be a much better fit. It would be nice if they would come. They'd knock Aldi out, or into the very worst neighborhoods only.
The Menifee and Temecula locations routinely have two checkstands open. Lately, I've seen three.
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Re: ALDI to add 70 new stores by next year

Post by ClownLoach »

CalItalian wrote: June 2nd, 2022, 6:43 am
storewanderer wrote: June 1st, 2022, 6:32 pm
Romr123 wrote: May 31st, 2022, 5:20 am We shopped a fair bit at the Palm Springs location (Ramon/Gene Autry) all winter and it was broadly comparable to any second-ring suburban location of the same vintage (built within the last 5 years) near us in Detroit...about 95% of the SKUs were seemingly the same...perhaps a bit more general merchandise, perhaps slightly slower moving in California, but I suspect it may be nothing more than being merchandised from Batavia, IL rather than closer to California.

They do seem to have a base Hispanic food assortment at that location (which we rarely see around Detroit, but I imagine is all over south side Chicago or in rural western Michigan) and a few more pre-made grab and go sandwiches in the refrigerator case (which need to be sourced closer to the region anyway) but that location doesn't strike me as being deficient in any way (other than parking lot layout which is a pain in the a@@ but that's certainly not their fault).
Interesting. I wonder if I just had bad luck. I kept quiet the first couple times but after a couple more bad visits I decided to make an observation.

Based on what I am seeing I am not even convinced Aldi will survive in California. They really need some more strict management and oversight over their stores. The folks they are hiring remind me of people Wal Mart fired (almost impossible to get fired from Wal Mart). And I make that statement in terms of the miserable attitude and efficiency (or lack thereof) of these employees. Nothing close to the efficient focused attitude of Aldi employees in the midwest. Also, poor attitude compared to other retailers in SoCal as well.
Have you really been in enough Aldi's multiple times to make your observations? Because I don't see what you are seeing AT ALL. The employees are ALWAYS friendly, helpful and work hard.

Not only do I see Aldi surviving in California, and they continue to build and open new stores, I believe they will be one of the top grocery retailers in this state one day.
Three observations on SoCal Aldi - first, I wouldn't question their operational ability without considering the neighborhood of the store. Where Aldi has rough store conditions - for the most part so does the local competition. There may be some exceptions which are "problem stores" but every chain has those and the amount of time it takes to correct those really depends on the quality of field leadership. One store I was very familiar with was a problem store for a few months with bad produce and date rotation issues but then a management change was made and the standards got fixed and have stayed fixed. So if they have a store near you that is rough but it is otherwise a good area for other stores send in a complaint to the corporate office. If the store actually gets fixed then now you have a potentially cheaper place to buy basics at and save money.

Second, they have a very strong Real Estate department that sniffs out bargain locations very well and has a brutal negotiating ability so they pay well below market rent almost everywhere they go. Somehow they can get a bargain lease on both old, vacant problem sites as well as new builds. I have heard that they like percentage rents to lower start up costs which means that they are able to open all these stores in a short period but then can take all the time in the world to build up a customer base - which matches their stated "word of mouth" marketing strategy to build traffic. This puts some burden on the landlord to promote Aldi at their own expense too because it's like they're getting a commission on their sales.

Third - I just don't see the "cookie cutter" strategy at all in SoCal. When I think about "cookie cutter" stores I think about CVS, or the way Target used to operate before P-fresh and their D&I initiatives. Aldi at least in SoCal is definitely merchandising food to the local market. I was in a store near the 605 and 91 which is a heavily Asian and Indian area and they had sourced a respectable assortment of goods for both categories. In other parts of Orange County that skew Hispanic they have most of an aisle of Pueblo Lindo (Aldi Hispanic Brand) foods. In Encinitas they are definitely trying to compete with the top volume Trader Joe's nearby with an expanded wine assortment. The only common thread I have seen is that the oddball general merchandise section just doesn't move in SoCal regardless of the neighborhood. I think they send the same minimum amount of units to each store; that pack size needs to get cut in half or less. As a result the aisle tends to be a poorly categorized consolidation of 11 different themes which looks like something out of Big Lots.
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Re: ALDI to add 70 new stores by next year

Post by storewanderer »

CalItalian wrote: June 2nd, 2022, 6:43 am
Have you really been in enough Aldi's multiple times to make your observations? Because I don't see what you are seeing AT ALL. The employees are ALWAYS friendly, helpful and work hard.

Not only do I see Aldi surviving in California, and they continue to build and open new stores, I believe they will be one of the top grocery retailers in this state one day.
The locations I went to were all in/around Orange County. One location was especially bad and I did complain to corporate via phone and nobody contacted me back despite requesting a call back, so obviously nobody at the local level cares. I also left a couple of negative receipt surveys asking to be contacted back and received some generic e-mail about they would forward the comments on to the responsible areas or something, and again heard nothing. So my perception is whatever management they have at the regional level does not care, or are in so far over their heads with problem operations that they simply don't have time to respond.

I am glad to hear you are seeing stores that are running like a proper Aldi but that sure isn't what I observed.

I don't expect Aldi to ever be one of the top grocery retailers in California. I'd be surprised if they ever even make it to the top 5. Maybe they can get to the top 10.

But whatever the case may be, their presence is absolutely having an impact in the SoCal market when you look at pricing at Albertsons and Kroger. Clearly the competition is holding prices in the SoCal market and I think Aldi is a big reason why (and Amazon, though as has been pointed out here Amazon's shelf pricing is not good and the only deal there is with the basket coupons).
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Re: ALDI to add 70 new stores by next year

Post by storewanderer »

ClownLoach wrote: June 3rd, 2022, 6:56 am
Three observations on SoCal Aldi - first, I wouldn't question their operational ability without considering the neighborhood of the store. Where Aldi has rough store conditions - for the most part so does the local competition. There may be some exceptions which are "problem stores" but every chain has those and the amount of time it takes to correct those really depends on the quality of field leadership. One store I was very familiar with was a problem store for a few months with bad produce and date rotation issues but then a management change was made and the standards got fixed and have stayed fixed. So if they have a store near you that is rough but it is otherwise a good area for other stores send in a complaint to the corporate office. If the store actually gets fixed then now you have a potentially cheaper place to buy basics at and save money.

Second, they have a very strong Real Estate department that sniffs out bargain locations very well and has a brutal negotiating ability so they pay well below market rent almost everywhere they go. Somehow they can get a bargain lease on both old, vacant problem sites as well as new builds. I have heard that they like percentage rents to lower start up costs which means that they are able to open all these stores in a short period but then can take all the time in the world to build up a customer base - which matches their stated "word of mouth" marketing strategy to build traffic. This puts some burden on the landlord to promote Aldi at their own expense too because it's like they're getting a commission on their sales.

Third - I just don't see the "cookie cutter" strategy at all in SoCal. When I think about "cookie cutter" stores I think about CVS, or the way Target used to operate before P-fresh and their D&I initiatives. Aldi at least in SoCal is definitely merchandising food to the local market. I was in a store near the 605 and 91 which is a heavily Asian and Indian area and they had sourced a respectable assortment of goods for both categories. In other parts of Orange County that skew Hispanic they have most of an aisle of Pueblo Lindo (Aldi Hispanic Brand) foods. In Encinitas they are definitely trying to compete with the top volume Trader Joe's nearby with an expanded wine assortment. The only common thread I have seen is that the oddball general merchandise section just doesn't move in SoCal regardless of the neighborhood. I think they send the same minimum amount of units to each store; that pack size needs to get cut in half or less. As a result the aisle tends to be a poorly categorized consolidation of 11 different themes which looks like something out of Big Lots.
I did not notice poor conditions at any of the competitors surrounding these stores so I don't think the neighborhoods were the issue. I also didn't see any security guards, locked restrooms, "lot cop" cameras in the middle of the parking lots, or other signs that would lead one to believe the neighborhood isn't the best.

I found the perimeter offer at Aldi to be completely cookie cutter along with the general merchandise. The center store mix did seem to vary somewhat as you point out, but in the stores that have more ethnic product, they seem to be missing various other products, or the other products are squeezed in so tightly, you have to hunt for them. I am also not sure how effective they are at moving that Asian/Hispanic product. From the looks of it, that stuff isn't moving very well either.

Finding items from store to store is somewhat challenging. For example I was purchasing some seltzer water. Their private label has 1 L Bottles in 4 flavors. Usually this is an item that is pretty easy to find. I searched and searched for it in one store. No employees on the floor to ask anything and one cashier with a constant long line. Typical. Eventually I found one box (box fits 12 bottles- this box had 9 bottles sitting in it) of it on an endcap facing the back wall, they had squeezed a few bottles of each flavor into that one box (it doesn't come from the supplier like that) and the endcap was blocked by unstocked boxes or other junk. What was funny is the endcap was less than 50% stocked.
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Re: ALDI to add 70 new stores by next year

Post by bayford »

storewanderer wrote: January 24th, 2021, 9:42 pm
Does Aldi not have self checkout? I think I saw one with it (but it was not open when I was in the store as I explicitly remember going to the cashier)...

Maybe not.
Circling back to this comment from a couple years ago, Aldi is now evidently going all-in on self-checkout, at least in the Midwest. They're taking out half of the usually 6 traditional checkouts and replacing them with 6 or so self-checkouts. There are no belts on the self-checkouts, just a large "box" to set scanned items in. The manufacturer's name on the devices escapes me now, but they aren't NCR. They don't take cash, nor do they have the ability to.

One nitpick about the software, for produce items sold by weight, you have no option other than to go through a menu to select and weigh the item, even if there's a barcode on it. Further, the menu doesn't have the ability to enter a PLU or type-in a description. You have to browse through pictures with limited text descriptions to find the item you want. Makes it real easy, for example, to ring up non-organic bananas as organic, or vice versa.

Other than that, the machines are fine, though for most people, it's unlikely they will match the speed of the traditional Aldi checkout process.
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Re: ALDI to add 70 new stores by next year

Post by storewanderer »

This is interesting. It seems like they would need to have 2 people up front at all times now, 1 to watch self checkout and 1 to cashier. But under their usual model it isn't unusual for them to only have 1 person up front.

Lidl has self checkout so I guess Aldi is again trying to play catch up to Lidl.

I wish Lidl would expand faster. I am somewhat concerned about Lidl in the US. Things do not seem to be going as well as they should be.

Aldi is clearly winning but I think Lidl has the better store.
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Re: ALDI to add 70 new stores by next year

Post by bayford »

From what I've seen, they're not necessarily assigning somebody to watch over the self-checkouts. In other words, the one person assigned to registers may be expected to run a traditional checkout plus monitor the self-checkouts and respond to any problems that arise.

But, yeah, the traditional Aldi model of usually only dedicating one person to the registers (and paging additional people to open up lanes as needed) makes this a curious move indeed. Plus, Aldi's traditional checkout was more or less perfected for high efficiency. Regardless of how busy the store's been, I've never really had a complaint there.
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Re: ALDI to add 70 new stores by next year

Post by storewanderer »

bayford wrote: May 23rd, 2023, 10:26 pm From what I've seen, they're not necessarily assigning somebody to watch over the self-checkouts. In other words, the one person assigned to registers may be expected to run a traditional checkout plus monitor the self-checkouts and respond to any problems that arise.

But, yeah, the traditional Aldi model of usually only dedicating one person to the registers (and paging additional people to open up lanes as needed) makes this a curious move indeed. Plus, Aldi's traditional checkout was more or less perfected for high efficiency. Regardless of how busy the store's been, I've never really had a complaint there.
That is always a disaster when a store tries to have one person running a regular register then running self checkouts at the same time. This happens at multiple Raleys, Food Maxx, and Save Mart locations in my area and it is a complete disaster. It used to happen sometimes at Safeway (back in the era before Albertsons removed their self checkouts) but since they put self checkouts back in they staff them diligently. Never saw this happen at Kroger. At Target and Wal Mart sometimes I am not sure anyone is watching self checkout at all. I've had to ask the security guard standing closer to the door at Target for help on self checkout before.
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Re: ALDI to add 70 new stores by next year

Post by mbz321 »

I've seen Self-Checkout added to a few of the higher volume Aldi stores near me and they seem to work just fine and I've never had to wait for them. I typically buy less than 10 items on any one trip so I love it. There is definitely nobody monitoring them (besides the camera at each station with an odd 'Checkouts are monitored 24/7' verbiage on them). I have noticed they do have them laid out sort of oddly (at least in both stores I've been in with them), with one self checkout seemingly by itself in front of all the registers near the bagging table area...not sure the reasoning for that. I haven't used it to see if it is any different or if they just put it up there due to space constraints. Very few produce items are sold by weight so it isn't a huge hindrance.
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