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A comment on The Aldi effect: how one discount supermarket transformed the way Britain shops. Parent comment

Re:The Aldi effect: how one discount supermarket transformed... by taneq on Monday March 11, 2019 @11:00PM (#19364984)
> they stock the store with a rotating selection of random crap that fell off the boat, baiting the impulse for an aspirational or just-in-case buy

I believe this is the key to their fanatical customer base. The random crap aisle means that when you go into the store there's a chance of an awesome deal on some random thing. This provides strong intermittent reinforcement which directly triggers the brain's reward mechanism, no different to loot drops in an MMO or payouts from a poker machine. People literally get addicted to Aldi's random-stuff aisle.

We've actually taken to referring to Aldi as "visiting the casino". :P

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Re:The Aldi effect: how one discount supermarket transformed... by tgsovlerkhgsel on Tuesday March 12, 2019 @01:50AM (#19365736)
This is an amazing observation, and as someone who used to shop there and at similar stores a lot, I have to agree.

You really _do_ get nice deals though. Many of my tools are from Aldi or Lidl, and in my experience, they're cheap in terms of price, but still surprisingly decent quality, pretty consistently.

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Re:The Aldi effect: how one discount supermarket transformed... by jvln on Tuesday March 12, 2019 @02:32AM (#19365883)
Good point. I was trying to vocalise this feeling but did not find the right explanation why I enjoyed so much the selection of random stuff.
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Re:The Aldi effect: how one discount supermarket transformed... by croisillon on Tuesday March 12, 2019 @02:11AM (#19365805)
(at least in Germany and Austria) you can even find a ~€10 book in bookshops listing the Aldi offers for each week
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Re:The Aldi effect: how one discount supermarket transformed... by hutzlibu on Tuesday March 12, 2019 @02:23AM (#19365853)
It is really interesting (and horrifying) to watch people storm the discounters in the morning, when there is the day that the new deals are arrieving ...

Quite alienating seeing them fight over crap to save a few euros ... if they even would have bought those things in the first place normally.

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Re:The Aldi effect: how one discount supermarket transformed... by NeedMoreTea on Tuesday March 12, 2019 @08:16AM (#19367386)
You don't pick up the leaflet that tells most of what's coming each week then? :p
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