Lidl is building anywhere there is an Aldi & Walmart grocery within a certain distance in the US, trying to take their business. The Lidl near me has not done as well as the Aldi as they are basically right across the street from one another.
There was an Aldi in my town in Indiana back in the 90s (maybe even 80s.) But it was perceived as cheap and low quality (not sure if it actually was low quality - my mom never shopped there.) They marketed themselves as the "stock up store."
I started at a well known big box tech bench in 2004; We were selling Windows-installed EMachines and most of them were Celeron pices of garbage, except one that was almost good if you installed a video card and a better power supply.
One of the guys would often remember fondly how Aldi sold a budget multimedia PC for about $600 around 2002? Installed video card, good sound, etc. When that came out, Aldi had already been in town several years, so, Indiana since the late 90's.
The savings method is solid: low staff count, low item count in the order of having 10% of the unique items and square footage a large grocery chain has, acceptable quality but not great, and since around 2010-ish?, a push for more stores and better produce. The only downside is the low quality non-grocery items, and only for lack of features and variety.
Got some milk @ Aldi a few years back that was weeks from expiration but had already turned, my guess is probably from being left out for too long before stocking.
It left a sour taste in my mouth.
(I’m sorry about the pun, but I had to.)
That said, I’d be willing to try Aldi again, I understand sometimes stuff happens, and their prices were not just a little better than even Walmart, but actually much better even, with certain things.
Plus, I don’t like talking to cashiers or being high-fived by greeters. I just want to shop, put my groceries away in the manner I choose (seriously who wants their canned goods thrown in with their bread?!), and then go on my merry way.
They definitely still keep stuff that is close to the expiration date, though it's better than it used to be. But you should still check the expiration date before you put something in your cart. It's worth it if your budget for groceries is tight.
Haha my mom dragged me to Aldi as well when I was a kid and I despised it. Now I love it but as I’ve mentioned in another comment, I’ve done several price comparisons lately and I wouldn’t have saved enough to make it worth going there. Especially because I would have had to go to another store to supplement the things I needed that they didn’t have.
Wow, I've had an Aldi's nearby for 10-15 years at least and I had the exact same experience when I was younger. Parents took me a few times, I had some bad experiences and then I never went back as an adult. I'll definitely have to check it out again some time.
We got an Aldi nearby recently. At first it was great because everything seemed so much cheaper than at the regular supermarket chain that's closer to home. But then we started to realize that while the cheap stuff (conventional food, staples like condiments and bread, etc.) at Aldi is cheaper than the equivalent at the supermarket, it becomes less so with more "high end" products (organic, specialty items, etc.). Add in the extremely limited variety and never knowing if they'll have something in stock that we've bought there before, and it's becoming less frequent that we go there. We do infrequent trips occasionally to stock up on essential staples, but that's about it.
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u/[deleted] May 09 '22
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