[Feedback] Aldi and Quality

Bri

Ok theres so many good things posted here all the time for Aldi, Im interested to hear any info. you might have on quality.

i.e. Are all the electronic goods just as reliable as if you bought them from Komplett, etc? Harddrives etc still proper brands, guaranteed and packaged?

Sorry if this is deemed off-topic but my experiences of rival smaller chains in Europe left me with the distinct impression that they were no glitz AND no quality. But then again I didnt buy anything!

Please let me know Im dying to buy things!

OfflerCrocGod

Bri wrote:

Please let me know Im dying to buy things!

Don't touch the HDD as I have already said they are repackaged Samsung ones - they have been sent back for a reason.

Bri

And is this kinda thing normal practise then?

Why is everyone so excited by goods if this is the kinda thing that can be sold?! :eek:

Kazu

Don't touch the HDD as I have already said they are repackaged Samsung ones - they have been sent back for a reason.

do have any proof to back up your claim :rolleyes:

cdebru

OfflerCrocGod wrote:

Don't touch the HDD as I have already said they are repackaged Samsung ones - they have been sent back for a reason.

i wouldn't believe that tbh
aldi are amassive company 5000 shops worldwide cant see them flogging dodgy hard drives to make a quick buck
anyway any problems with anything just bring it back money back no problem keep your receipt
i have bought plenty of stuff there never had any problems

elvis2002

yah i'd like to see some proof of that claim too and not just hearsay

spongebob

MOST of the computery stuff is Medion badged.

Medion buy in stuff from reputable makers and put their name on it, a processs known as OEM ' ing. There is nothing wrong with the kit or the price charged by Aldi. I cannot comment on returns policies because its all still working .

The Medion PC offers are normally a great bang for buck. If you miss the PC in the shop you may backorder one and it arrives about 4 weeks later. I know of 2 schools in Galway that have kitted out their computer rooms with them. They are very happy with what they got the last time because they all have card slots so the kids can take photos on digital cameras (their home and their school ones) and work away on them in school .

Having said that, Komplett are normally cheaper for Hard Drives and thereabouts for DVD Writers .

Aldi are great for cheese and chocolate !

M

Stephen

Yeah, i've bought a medion DVD burner there before - its a rebadged Pioneer. The hard disks are Samsung spinpoints - I never heard anything about the rumour offlercrocgod is talking about though.

savemejebus

i don't know i'd tend to agree with Offler. If these item's are A1 ok then why are they not being sold as Samsungs straight out.

I've been told (by a reliable source) that what happens with these rebranded items, this was explained to me using cheap branded DVDs as the example, is that a reputable company, Sony, Phillips etc. makes large quantities of this item. They have various quality levels to go through, and as in any manufacturing process not everything produced can get through these texts. When you think about the amounts of goods being produced by these companies you realise that the sheer number of items that are deemed sub-standard, or not fit to wear the company badge must be huge too.

So then the problem is what to do with these items have been produced. It is illegal to simply dump them (dvds contain toxins and there are laws about dumping electronic goods) and it costs quite a bit to have them dumped officially or recycled.

Now seeing as these items aren't necessarily defective, just not up to the standards of the brand name, they're not totally useless. So the company contact medion, or aldi or lidl and tell them that they have a consignment of unbranded dvds, hard drives etc. that they over produced and are letting go cheap, as long as they're not sold as sonys etc. Basically they give them away, and just get aldi, medion etc. to pay for collection and rebranding.

These products then reach the market at bargain prices through lidl or aldi or whatever. They're not necessarily bad, just not up to the usual standards of said company.

Well thats how it was all explained to me anyway and seeing as the person that explained it to me was in the industry in Germany I would believe it

Stephen

Hold on now, Aldi are selling those hard disks as Samsungs, there's no mention of any other brand name.
As for the medion dvd burners, they're exactly the same as the Pioneer ones. A large amount of OEM's (many known for quality, such as Asus) rebage Pioneer DVD burners as their own.

savemejebus

first off i'm not trying to start and argument or anything, i just wanted to relay information that i think is interesting and imho plausible.

if aldi are selling the disks as samsungs and the price isn't much lower than the samsung price then there is no problem. I was speaking in general about rebranded medion etc. products.

As for the medion dvd burners, they're exactly the same as the Pioneer ones.

Thats exactly my point, they would be produced in the same factory, using the same processes but they might not be able to pass the same quality tests, i don't know, maybe they can only burn 10,000 disks instead of 100,000.

Do asus sell the pioneer dvd burners at bargain prices or at high prices? (i honestly don't know)

Stephen

The prices they're selling computer hardware at are FAR lower than their Irish competition (bunch of ****ty rip off merchants the lot of them), but pretty much on a par with online shops.

savemejebus

Asus or Aldi?

Stephen

Aldi.

tribble

savemejebus wrote:

i don't know i'd tend to agree with Offler. If these item's are A1 ok then why are they not being sold as Samsungs straight out.

I've been told (by a reliable source) that what happens with these rebranded items, this was explained to me using cheap branded DVDs as the example, is that a reputable company, Sony, Phillips etc. makes large quantities of this item. They have various quality levels to go through, and as in any manufacturing process not everything produced can get through these texts. When you think about the amounts of goods being produced by these companies you realise that the sheer number of items that are deemed sub-standard, or not fit to wear the company badge must be huge too.

So then the problem is what to do with these items have been produced. It is illegal to simply dump them (dvds contain toxins and there are laws about dumping electronic goods) and it costs quite a bit to have them dumped officially or recycled.

Now seeing as these items aren't necessarily defective, just not up to the standards of the brand name, they're not totally useless. So the company contact medion, or aldi or lidl and tell them that they have a consignment of unbranded dvds, hard drives etc. that they over produced and are letting go cheap, as long as they're not sold as sonys etc. Basically they give them away, and just get aldi, medion etc. to pay for collection and rebranding.

These products then reach the market at bargain prices through lidl or aldi or whatever. They're not necessarily bad, just not up to the usual standards of said company.

Well thats how it was all explained to me anyway and seeing as the person that explained it to me was in the industry in Germany I would believe it

Cop on.

Have you ever heard of outsourcing?

Pioneer outsource TWO THIRDS of their drives to other companies to badge in their own name.

"Only one-third of Pioneer’s DVD burner production is for own-brand sales, the rest is done as OEM business, according to Shannon Yu, general manager for optical disc drive sales at Pioneer High Fidelity. Globally, Pioneer expects to ship 6-7 million half-height (H/H) DVD burners and 1.5-2 million slim-type DVD burners this year, Yu indicated."
source DigiTimes http://www.digitimes.com/NewsShow/NewsSearch.asp?DocID=C5D93DBB9FCF4B3448256EE70044B9A9&query=PIONEER+OEM

Idiot.

tribble

savemejebus

tribble wrote:

Cop on.

Have you ever heard of outsourcing?

Pioneer outsource TWO THIRDS of their drives to other companies to badge in their own name.

"Only one-third of Pioneer’s DVD burner production is for own-brand sales, the rest is done as OEM business, according to Shannon Yu, general manager for optical disc drive sales at Pioneer High Fidelity. Globally, Pioneer expects to ship 6-7 million half-height (H/H) DVD burners and 1.5-2 million slim-type DVD burners this year, Yu indicated."
source DigiTimes http://www.digitimes.com/NewsShow/NewsSearch.asp?DocID=C5D93DBB9FCF4B3448256EE70044B9A9&query=PIONEER+OEM

Idiot.

tribble

Wow tribble thanks, it's great to be called an idiot for posting something. Makes me want to follow the link and read your information much more than a polite reply.

I am aware of outsourcing thank you although i was under the impression that outsourcing to another company involved getting another company to do work for you. Not you doing the work for another company. but being a lowly idiot i make mistakes like that all the time. sorry for offending

Borzoi

Another common practice in manufacturing is to produce the new/top end equipment under their brand name - say Philips. Then when the product is no longer at the cutting edge, rather than stop a production line, and discontiue the line they re-badge the product with another name say Beko, Z1.

This means that they can continue to churn out less than cutting edge/top marque, without damaging their Brand name.

chabsey

This should explain re-branding as it applies to laptops, the same idea applies to other parts too.

REBRANDING

Guy:Incognito

Borzoi wrote:

Another common practice in manufacturing is to produce the new/top end equipment under their brand name - say Philips. Then when the product is no longer at the cutting edge, rather than stop a production line, and discontiue the line they re-badge the product with another name say Beko, Z1.

This means that they can continue to churn out less than cutting edge/top marque, without damaging their Brand name.

Thats exactly what SOny do with Aiwa. It's basically Sony stuff but a year or two behind.

OfflerCrocGod

Stephen wrote:

Hold on now, Aldi are selling those hard disks as Samsungs, there's no mention of any other brand name.

Gericom sorry for taking so long to reply I didn't know people would be that interested in this, it's not as if the HDD are going to explode Gericoms name was used along with Samsungs in the pamphlet that was dropped in the door - I just confused their name with another company. I read about it inside another thread in Boards ( I believe this very forum ) but it wasn't to do with the title so finding it again is too much effort for me ( the person got one of their other HDD from a few months ago 120GB? and it was broke he just brought it back and got a replacement the manager then mentioned the origin of the drives ) Just because they have been scrubbed up doesn't mean that they will break down or anything - it's just that they will be more likely to die, maybe a lower MTBF - so what's the big deal? I still have a 1GB HDD that works just fine; what's more important is how you treat the drive but personally I can wait for my deliveries from Komplett and Jes and get a HDD I am 100% confident in.

parsi

Returning goods to Aldi is easy - I bought a Bluetooth headset and didn't really like it so I brough it back (had my spiel ready) - refund straight away - no questions. i saw on a recent flyer that they have a 1 year return/refund policy which isn't bad at all..

Eurorunner

I have just installed the Medion DVD burner (MD42064) as offered by Aldi yesterday. The manual reckons that i need to install their software so that it can function - and that i have to select which 'region' is applicable. I want the burner to be multi-region and i'm thinking the software is out there to make this happen?

Can anyone assist?

Stephen

http://forum.rpc1.org will sort you out.

That drive is most likely a Pioneer 107, but you'd want to double check before flashing the firmware.

bk

savemejebus wrote:

I've been told (by a reliable source) that what happens with these rebranded items, this was explained to me using cheap branded DVDs as the example, is that a reputable company, Sony, Phillips etc. makes large quantities of this item. They have various quality levels to go through, and as in any manufacturing process not everything produced can get through these texts. When you think about the amounts of goods being produced by these companies you realise that the sheer number of items that are deemed sub-standard, or not fit to wear the company badge must be huge too.

I'm afraid your reliable resource is plain wrong. What we are talking about here is OEM'ing, this is a practice that is very widespread and completely cosher in the computer industry.

What happens is that a company like Pioneer will make a very large number of drives, some it sells under it's own name (and charges a premium because it is a well known name), others it sells to other companies who just rebadge it and slightly undercut Pioneers prices (because they have a less well known name). There is absolutely no difference between a Pioneer badged drive and a Pioneer OEM drive, they are exactly the same drive and exactly the same quality.

In fact Pioneer make way more drives for OEM then it does for itself. Pioneer is the biggest OEM manufacturer in the business and if the quality of their OEM drives wasn't up to the same standard as their own badged drives, then they would lose all their OEM partners, who just wouldn't stand for it.

What you need to understand is that while there maybe hundreds of companies who sell drives, there are in fact only about a dozen companies who actually build drives and about 4 companies (Philips, Pioneer) who design the reference boards used by everyone.

What your friend probably got confused with is blank CD and DVD media, where he is sort of right. The companies who make blank media, typically have different brand names under which they sell media of different quality.

savemejebus

Thanks for the explaination. My friend did explain it to me talking about blank cd and dvd media so it's my interpretation thats wrong.

But just to explain the reason that i felt that it could be applied here is because we were talking specifically about Medion, which i personally wouldn't place on the same level as ASUS(mentioned by Stephen). I understand the whole process of OEMing but i am just skeptical of a company that can undercut the original maker by such a significant margin, especially in a physical store as apposed to online. Another reason that i am skeptical is due to pioneers refusal to provide support for medion badged products.

Stephen

I don't think Pioneer support any of the OEMs. Its up to them to arrange their own support.

bk

savemejebus wrote:

Thanks for the explaination. My friend did explain it to me talking about blank cd and dvd media so it's my interpretation thats wrong.

But just to explain the reason that i felt that it could be applied here is because we were talking specifically about Medion, which i personally wouldn't place on the same level as ASUS(mentioned by Stephen). I understand the whole process of OEMing but i am just skeptical of a company that can undercut the original maker by such a significant margin, especially in a physical store as apposed to online. Another reason that i am skeptical is due to pioneers refusal to provide support for medion badged products.

In fact, the Medion prices aren't actually that great at all, the price for their HD and DVD Burners are actually more expensive then at online shops like komplett. They are only cheaper then Irish Brick and Mortar stores which have been ripping us off for years.

The reason Aldi can get better pricing is that they buy one item and model only in massive bulk (they have over 1000 stores across Europe) and can negotiate very favourable prices.

In fact the manufacturers like Samsung and Pioneer actually up their manufacturing capacity when they get a special order from Aldi/Lidl. It is very similar to what Walmart do in the US.

cdebru

bk wrote:

The reason Aldi can get better pricing is that they buy one item and model only in massive bulk (they have over 1000 stores across Europe) and can negotiate very favourable prices..

aldi have 5000 shops worldwide

so an order for 40 drives per shop is 200,000 drives easy to see how they can sell cheaper than pc world
also as they are using these offers to get people into the shop
they are not that concerned about selling the drives for a profit
they make their profit on the other stuff you buy while ur getting your drive
and of course they get the advertising from people talking about them like we are now

sceptre

savemejebus wrote:

Another reason that i am skeptical is due to pioneers refusal to provide support for medion badged products.

From the point of view of the manufacturer (any manufacturer), that's almost the whole point of OEMming

milltown

savemejebus wrote:

i don't know i'd tend to agree with Offler. If these item's are A1 ok then why are they not being sold as Samsungs straight out.

I've been told (by a reliable source) that what happens with these rebranded items, this was explained to me using cheap branded DVDs as the example, is that a reputable company, Sony, Phillips etc. makes large quantities of this item. They have various quality levels to go through, and as in any manufacturing process not everything produced can get through these texts. When you think about the amounts of goods being produced by these companies you realise that the sheer number of items that are deemed sub-standard, or not fit to wear the company badge must be huge too.

So then the problem is what to do with these items have been produced. It is illegal to simply dump them (dvds contain toxins and there are laws about dumping electronic goods) and it costs quite a bit to have them dumped officially or recycled.

Now seeing as these items aren't necessarily defective, just not up to the standards of the brand name, they're not totally useless. So the company contact medion, or aldi or lidl and tell them that they have a consignment of unbranded dvds, hard drives etc. that they over produced and are letting go cheap, as long as they're not sold as sonys etc. Basically they give them away, and just get aldi, medion etc. to pay for collection and rebranding.

These products then reach the market at bargain prices through lidl or aldi or whatever. They're not necessarily bad, just not up to the usual standards of said company.

Well thats how it was all explained to me anyway and seeing as the person that explained it to me was in the industry in Germany I would believe it

Do you honestly believe these companies wait until the goods roll off the end of the production line before they check the quality? Each component will be tested before it is added to the assembly and the assembly will be tested at various stages along the line.
I work in a manufacturing company and this is common practice. The first component added may be only worth a euro or two, then the labour and parts added along the line cause the value of the assembly to rise at each step along the way to the end of the line. It is a LOT cheaper to check the quality along the way than to find at the end you have €100 worth of scrap (or sub par) merchandise because the €2 motor fitted at the beginning is a dud.

KdjaCL

savemejebus wrote:

i don't know i'd tend to agree with Offler. If these item's are A1 ok then why are they not being sold as Samsungs straight out.

I've been told (by a reliable source) that what happens with these rebranded items, this was explained to me using cheap branded DVDs as the example, is that a reputable company, Sony, Phillips etc. makes large quantities of this item. They have various quality levels to go through, and as in any manufacturing process not everything produced can get through these texts. When you think about the amounts of goods being produced by these companies you realise that the sheer number of items that are deemed sub-standard, or not fit to wear the company badge must be huge too.

So then the problem is what to do with these items have been produced. It is illegal to simply dump them (dvds contain toxins and there are laws about dumping electronic goods) and it costs quite a bit to have them dumped officially or recycled.

Now seeing as these items aren't necessarily defective, just not up to the standards of the brand name, they're not totally useless. So the company contact medion, or aldi or lidl and tell them that they have a consignment of unbranded dvds, hard drives etc. that they over produced and are letting go cheap, as long as they're not sold as sonys etc. Basically they give them away, and just get aldi, medion etc. to pay for collection and rebranding.

These products then reach the market at bargain prices through lidl or aldi or whatever. They're not necessarily bad, just not up to the usual standards of said company.

Well thats how it was all explained to me anyway and seeing as the person that explained it to me was in the industry in Germany I would believe it

This is sort of incorrect, Sony and the rest dont actually make anything, they use 3rd party companies to make everything. Most contracts these companies sign allow continued production under a different brand name.
Example LG dont actually design much they use internal components from companies they manufacture goods on beahlf of to make their own products.

There are 5 large manufacturing companies in Asia each with over 400 plants between them they make everything for the 1st party Sony Pioneer etc:

kdjac

po0k

Muck wrote:

MOST of the computery stuff is Medion badged.

Medion buy in stuff from reputable makers and put their name on it, a processs known as OEM ' ing. There is nothing wrong with the kit or the price charged by Aldi. I cannot comment on returns policies because its all still working .

The Medion PC offers are normally a great bang for buck. If you miss the PC in the shop you may backorder one and it arrives about 4 weeks later. I know of 2 schools in Galway that have kitted out their computer rooms with them. They are very happy with what they got the last time because they all have card slots so the kids can take photos on digital cameras (their home and their school ones) and work away on them in school .

Having said that, Komplett are normally cheaper for Hard Drives and thereabouts for DVD Writers .

Aldi are great for cheese and chocolate !

M

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James_M

Borzoi wrote:

Another common practice in manufacturing is to produce the new/top end equipment under their brand name - say Philips. Then when the product is no longer at the cutting edge, rather than stop a production line, and discontiue the line they re-badge the product with another name say Beko, Z1.

This means that they can continue to churn out less than cutting edge/top marque, without damaging their Brand name.

Bang on. If a shop is selling "seconds" then they have to say so. The products being discussed are new and just sold under different names to protect precious brands.

Not only the year old products as you say but also major companies make significant margins on their own name products and they can then take the opportunity to sell under other names to major retailers such as Aldi. I can imagine Sony etc not being too eager to flog off loads of products under their own name in Aldi.

Of course there is also a lot of cheap crap being sold. The trick is to find out the difference.