Aldi, a brutally efficient grocery chain, is upending America's supermarkets

Re:Aldi, a brutally efficient grocery chain, is upending Ame... by ddebernardy on Saturday May 18, 2019 @01:14AM (#19945801)

You forgot another important bit: the pickup area after their conveyor belt is one of the shortest out there, which forces customers to pack in a hurry so as to keep up with how fast the cashier is going.

Speaking for myself, it's the part that annoys me most when I shop at one. I get why they designed their POS it, but it's just obnoxious for the elderly and for parents with by small children.

It would seem simple enough to solve, too: just add two such areas.

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Re:Aldi, a brutally efficient grocery chain, is upending Ame... by tonyedgecombe on Saturday May 18, 2019 @02:25AM (#19946014)

They don't want you to pack it at the till. They want you to put it straight back in the trolley then take it to the packing area to bag it up.

I've noticed everybody does this in Germany but most haven't grasped it in the UK yet.

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Re:Aldi, a brutally efficient grocery chain, is upending Ame... by systoll on Saturday May 18, 2019 @02:36AM (#19946056)

> It would seem simple enough to solve, too: just add two such areas.

Many (most?) Australian Aldis have that -- each cashier has two 'lanes' they can run groceries down after scanning, and customers alternate between the two.

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Re:Aldi, a brutally efficient grocery chain, is upending Ame... by beatgammit on Monday May 20, 2019 @12:34AM (#19957538)

I don't have Aldi where I live, but we do have a place called WinCo. At WinCo, there are two conveyer belts after the cashier, and the cashier switches which conveyer belt to use by switching a gate. So, once you pay, you go over to your conveyer belt and bag up your purchase, and the stuff from the next customer goes to the other side.

It works pretty well and I actually prefer to reload myself, as opposed to other stores that have someone there to bag for you.

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Re:Aldi, a brutally efficient grocery chain, is upending Ame... by eredengrin on Saturday May 18, 2019 @02:17AM (#19945981)

I've been to quite a few Aldis and the flow in all of them is that the items get scanned and immediately placed in a cart, then there's a separate bagging area (a large counter along the wall near the exit door, a couple feet across from the cashier section) to actually move the items from your cart into your bags however you please. Are there Aldi stores which don't work like this? I can't imagine trying to bag fast enough to keep up with the cashiers...

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Re:Aldi, a brutally efficient grocery chain, is upending Ame... by DominikPeters on Saturday May 18, 2019 @05:16AM (#19946469)

In all countries I've seen, except the U.S., Aldi cashiers move items into a small buffer area, and the customer then transfers them back into their cart, in sync with the cashier. In some non-German countries (e.g. UK), customers often don't cooperate or are slower than the cashier, which reduces efficiency. The U.S. system is different, where the cashier directly pushes items into the cart, and also there seems to be a weird cart-switch going on, where you get the cart of the person who used to be in front of you. My guess is that Aldi couldn't educate U.S. customers that they have to work in sync with the cashier, and then they came up with this solution.

U.S. checkout shape: https://www.trbimg.com/img-589b8178/turbine/ct-aldi-expansio...

Non-U.S. checkouts: https://www.lebensmittelzeitung.net/gallery/media/852/15994-... http://www.wochenanzeiger-muenchen.de/media/archive/wsp/5634...

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