Are Lidl/Aldi doomed once the recession is over?

Hollister11

A few things I don't get in lidl - milk IMO it will do but it isn't as nice as avonmore.
Dog food - the quality is terrible and my dogs refuser to eat it now - the treats are good.
Some cereal - the own brand cornflakes and coco pops arnt great compared to other own brands in supervalue

Into The Blue

I'll shop at aldi if only for the fast till times..
Fecking hate shopping at dunes or tesco, slowly losing the will to live as yer wan takes aaagggeesss to scan

gladrags

As a recovering cardiac out patient,the quality takes precedence over cost.

A&l have introduced a wider range of healthier choice.

Fruit,veg and poultry ,fish and meats appear fresh,and there is a bigger emphasis on Irish equals fresh.

The same applies to dairy produce.

Overall, all outlets are guilty of over relying on processed and toxic food.

Given the serious health issues related to salt,sugar and fats.

It is a pity Aldi or Lidl has not taken the lead,and banned one of the above

Don't hold your banana.

SpaceTime

Aldi and Lidl are doing serious damage to Tesco and Asda in the UK too. It's not just post Celtic Tiger Ireland.

Tesco isn't high end and it's not cheap

M&S, Waitrose and Super Valu offer something a bit different in terms of very high end products and a nice experience.

Tesco charges you a lot for mediocre products and often big-box ugly stores these days.

Ideal combination is Aldi or Lidl for the basics, M&S (and the English market gourmet stuff down here) and SuperValu / ex superquinn for the branded and local artisan stuff.

Tesco and Dunne's aren't really in my mix anymore.

Fred Swanson

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foggy_lad

Before the crash many people shopped in Aldi/Lidl once a month for things like toilet paper and larder items, pasta freezer fillers etc and did their main shopping in the main supermarkets.

Now the same people do their weekly shopping in Aldi/Lidl and go to the others once a month for the few branded items they or the kids will not do without.

Aldi and Lidl are definitely here to stay and because of their policy of staying in or near town centres where possible they will have a much better position than the others who sold their prime locations in town centres to move miles out in the countryside where only those with cars or who pay for taxis can shop.


Also the reason the other supermarkets carry so many different brands of the same items is not for customer choice but to confuse the bejaysus out of the shoppers who are trying to compare prices and pack/unit sizes etc because all these different brands of the same product have different prices and different pack sizes and with many the pack sizes changes every few weeks as their famous fake offers are announced.

EunanMac

I started doing all my weekly shopping in Lidl, just after the first few opened, when nearly no one did, and when you got funny looks for saying you did. The shops were practically empty of any Irish people then, and they were comparatively, much much cheaper than they are now. Comparatively, as they became busier, there was less and less big savings to be had, and Lidl and Aldi have realised they only have to be just slightly cheaper than the existing cartels in Ireland and they will clean up, and continue to do so.

bnagrrl

misterdeeds wrote: »

.. give you no chance to put your few things in your bag just scan your stuff and almost throw it at you

You're supposed to just fire your stuff back into your trolley and move over to the counter by the window to pack it up properly at your leisure

Love Aldi/Lidl. Shopped there before the recession and will continue to do so regardless. The fruit and veg are superb IMO, love the smoked salmon, Parma ham and the new pulled pork and the quinoa salads. Yogurts too are great. I would say I do 90% of my grocery shopping there and only get a few special items in my local Supervalu or tesco if I needed something very particular for a recipe.

foggy_lad

EmilyHoward wrote: »

I really like shopping in aldi / lidl now , their fresh fruit and vegetable sections are much better than the rivals but there is just 2 things which would convert me for life
1) self service checkouts for <10 - 15 items or less, I hate queuing for ages with 1 - 2 items behind someone with a trolley full of 100+ items.
2) more space in the areas behind the checkout for your groceries, at times it can feel like they are practically throwing the shopping at you.

Whenever I am at the till loading my items from my small trolly onto the belt and someone arrives behind me with a few(<10) items they get passed ahead of me as I feel it is only fair they should get to pay while i might still be loading my shopping onto the belt.

As for the small areas at the till, you should have your trolley or basket to quickly throw stuff into then pack it away from the till at the shelf provided for this purpose. Aldi/Lidl are not the first to work this way in Ireland, Many Crazy prices stores as well as all the Gubay's stores and several other small independent supermarket chains most now long gone had the same system at the tills to make the shopping experience as fast as possible and get as many as possible through the tills.

Fred Swanson wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

Got milk in Aldi the other day and it had 12 days lifespan! the best I ever got from Tesco or SuperQuinn/Valu was 7 days. and like others have stated the quality is just the best available.

Aglomerado

marienbad wrote: »

I have never met anyone that was embarrassed at shopping in Aldi or Lidl.

A former snobby friend of mine used to use the "They have good plants for the garden" as a pretext for going there.

I shopped in Aldi / Lidl right through the boom, then the recession, and will continue to do so. Their value for money is unparalleled in my opinion.

leeroybrown

ALDI and LIDL have the biggest profit margins in the Irish supermarket sector. There's absolutely no chance of them hitting any trouble. Even when they were unfashionable and more focussed on the lower end of the market when they first opened they were doing very well. If the average Irish person starts spending more on weekly shopping they'll just increase the quality of some of their offerings and run better weekly specials to keep their customers.

former legend

I have always been a big fan of Aldi but the quality of their fruit and veg is gone down IMO, doesn't keep nearly as long as it should. Also wrecks my head that so much of their fruit comes from the other side of the world, fair enough for bananas or pineapples but do apples really need to come from Chile and pears from South Africa?

It's also annoying that you can go into Aldi and buy what they have, whereas you can go to Dunnes or Supervalu and buy what you want. So I go to Aldi pretty much every week but I always need to follow it up with a trip to another supermarket to get what Aldi don't stock.

Han534

I think its been good for Ireland as it has motivated others to drive down prices

L1011

Aglomerado wrote: »

A former snobby friend of mine used to use the "They have good plants for the garden" as a pretext for going there.

CEO in work used "its the closest supermarket to the holiday house..." as her excuse, now shops there weekly despite there being a Tesco and Supervalu much closer to her actual house.

The snobbery seems to be gone in Ireland - in the UK though its still very obviously there, hence the really bad jokes made on British comedy shows etc.

MugMugs

We all grew up in Society of "St Bernards finest" when it came to clothes.

My folks couldn't afford to dress us in Nike and Addidas.

So we went out and got small jobs like paper drops and earned the money to buy our designer brands.

The retail snobbery has always existed. It just seems to have promoted the likes of Dunnes with the inception of Aldi and Lidl,

Shelflife

First up let me declare my hand that im a small retailer, I rarely if ever shop elsewhere, but will check out the bigger supermarkets on occasion.

They are far from doomed, they have done an excellent job in their advertising and you really have to admire their advertising campaigns.They have gone from being the dour secretive uber effecient Germans to the wonderful open and virtually Irish companies.

Their Ads are really making their point, ramming home the fact that Aldi and Lidl are really cheap and that you would be mad to be shopping elsewhere,this in turn is backed up my an amount of free publicity they get in the print and in particular on the radio (ironic as they dont even play the radio on their stores).

On closer inspection some of their offers arent all that they seem, their pack sizes are different to the norm, 750g of carrots v 1kg in my shop look the same but the perception is that they are cheaper, 5kg bags of potatoes v 10kg in my shop actually works out cheaper with us, 2kg washed potatoes v 2.5kg with us again giving the perception of better value when its the same. indeed with potatoes I have seen them sell "whites" a variety that we have never sold as the quality is so poor.

Many of our offers are very competitive with the supermarkets, but because they have the advertising spend its hard for us to get the message out there, the perception is there that the local shop is dear and the supermarkets are cheap.

Their claims of saving €80 per week on a 4 family shop could well be true if the family are switching from lobster and caviar washed down with a nice Moet to what most people eat, how they get away with those claims is beyond me.

Dont get me wrong, they have value without a doubt, but IMO and from what little experience I have had with their products I feel that you are sacrificing quality for quantity. For eg my kids got 2 Lidl easter eggs this year only one was eaten the other was thrown out, in a house where there is many an agruement over who ate whos chocolate this was a suprise.Some of their sauces left a lot to be desired but I appreciate that its down to personal taste.

They pay well,but employ very few,many of their employees are on much lower guaranteed hours than the small shops, despite all their advertising they still import an awful alot of their core range and repatriate their profits out of the country. Much less of every euro you spend in Aldi/Lidl compared with a euro you spend in a local shop will stay in the community you live in.

Im not a fan of Aldi/Lidl shops, i find them dreary and soulless places, I personally (if i didnt have a shop) wouldnt shop there but again thats a personal preference.

On a professional level,there is alot to admire about Lidl and Aldi, they are clearly well run, clean and efficient,their marketing campaigns are second to none and id say that they will be here for a long time to come.

former legend

Shelflife wrote: »

Their claims of saving €80 per week on a 4 family shop could well be true if the family are switching from lobster and caviar washed down with a nice Moet to what most people eat, how they get away with those claims is beyond me.

Yeah, this in particular is bullsh*t, and you're right that they get a free ride and masses of free publicity from the media, Conor Pope and 'Pricewatch' in the Irish Times being the main culprit.

fleet_admiral

I have only recently started using Lidl (Aldi is too far) for the vast majoriy of my shopping. Yesterday I did a 90% full shop for me, the wife and son and it came to just over €50. As far as I am concerned I wouldnt get that in one of the symbol groups. I find the quality of their own brand items is far superior to the like of Tesco value, daily basics etc..
The remaining 10% goes to Supervalu for the items I cant get in Lidl. Ill be sticking with them

hoodwinked

Sunhill wrote: »

There's no going back.
Noticed Tesco Mahon Point, Cork, has FIVE checkout lanes closed semi-permanently, replaced by stock displays.
The start of a slippery slope for the old regime?

that is possibly the worst example to use, Tesco Mahon point is really a giant "pop in" shop, not somewhere people go to do their shopping for many reasons,

traffic is so bad in the area people tend to go to Tesco Douglas or Tesco Wilton rather than mahon point,

their main target shoppers are workers in mahon point popping in for a quick post work shop or people going to the cinema (hence their large drinks/crisp/sweet aisles near the main center door)

as for myself i shop where ever the bargains are, i pass both a supervalu and tesco everyday so we have adapted an "offer shop" kind of process, we tried shopping in lidl and aldi but nether stock the majority of the foods we eat,

if you like non spicy sauces or pasta dishes these stores do nothing for you with very basic selections, they are great for fruit and veg though i tend to shop in local smaller shops for those, and our local butchers is un-rivaled for prices and quality/quantity of meat,

we found ourselves spending €20 in aldi and another €20 in tesco/supervalu/dunnes replacing items they didn't have, not to mention the extra petrol used by having to shop in two stores, as opposed to a shop in supervalu or tesco (which have a local butchers/greengrocers in the same center) that would usually cost us roughly €20/€30 per week, we buy in bulk when things are on offer like toilet paper, a huge box of fairy washing powder we bought for €20 last december just ran out in july, nescafe gold blend coffee when they are reduced or have 100% extra free...etc

when tesco misprice something as they often do (like recently they did sure deodorants for 86cent) i buy loads making most of what i buy brand names that are cheaper than the cheapest aldi equivalent,

my grandmother used do it for us when we were younger with clothes (buying next years summer clothes in the end of summer sales) and i applied the same principles with long lasting brand items leaving only perishables to buy during the weeks,

L1011

Sunhill wrote: »

There's no going back.
Noticed Tesco Mahon Point, Cork, has FIVE checkout lanes closed semi-permanently, replaced by stock displays.
The start of a slippery slope for the old regime?

This has been the case in a lot of Extra shops for some time. They may be open again at Christmas.

Bigus

hoodwinked wrote: »

if you like non spicy sauces or pasta dishes these stores do nothing for you with very basic selections, they are great for fruit and veg though i tend to shop in local smaller shops for those, and our local butchers is un-rivaled for prices and quality/quantity of meat,
,

You won't get Branded pre made sauces , but you'll buy good quality , passata , chopped tinned tomatoes, whole tinned tomatoes , tomato purée , fresh chilled pasta and dried pasta for next to nothing, plus a lot of this comes direct from Italy, and real Parmesan at a reasonable price.

Like I said if you want to eat healthy this is the way to go, back to basic ingredients with your own twist, and avoid premade processed branded crap.

former legend

Bigus wrote: »

You won't get Branded pre made sauces , but you'll buy good quality , passata , chopped tinned tomatoes, whole tinned tomatoes , tomato purée , fresh chilled pasta and dried pasta for next to nothing, plus a lot of this comes direct from Italy, and real Parmesan at a reasonable price.

Like I said if you want to eat healthy this is the way to go, back to basic ingredients with your own twist, and avoid premade processed branded crap.

That's a lifestyle choice, not a supermarket comparison. Aldi/Lidl are no healthier than any other supermarket.

Bigus

former legend wrote: »

That's a lifestyle choice, not a supermarket comparison. Aldi/Lidl are no healthier than any other supermarket.

Yeah , but easier to follow , when not confronted by 30,000 lines.

SoapMcTavish

The Aldi's stores in Limerick seem to be very slow at moving people through the checkouts IMO. Always queues out into the aisles, no matter what time I go there. Never seems to be enough checkouts open.

Some good products there, and I combine with my traditional Dunnes weekly shop.

hoodwinked

Bigus wrote: »

You won't get Branded pre made sauces , but you'll buy good quality , passata , chopped tinned tomatoes, whole tinned tomatoes , tomato purée , fresh chilled pasta and dried pasta for next to nothing, plus a lot of this comes direct from Italy, and real Parmesan at a reasonable price.

Like I said if you want to eat healthy this is the way to go, back to basic ingredients with your own twist, and avoid premade processed branded crap.

there are other sauces not tomato based that are not spicy either, they don't stock those, as much as i love making sauces from scratch sometimes i don't have time to be fussing,

they also don't stock farfalle or other shapes my daughter loves eating

the problem i find with lidl and aldi is that your diet/meals have to change to suit their stock rather than with other supermarkets which offer whatever you want to make/eat for sale,

if you want to make homemade pizza (which we do often) a: Tesco's mozzarella is cheaper (and a larger packet) and is of excellent quality, b: you cannot get yeast there, and c: strong white flour is either not stocked or wasn't there when my husband shopped there that day,

so frozen pizza's from aldi are the easier choice for aldi shoppers in this particular case where arguably Tesco are cheaper and better quality aka homemade!

former legend

Bigus wrote: »

Yeah , but easier to follow , when not confronted by 30,000 lines.

But that's exactly the problem with Aldi/Lidl. They have one variety of pre-made sauce; if you don't like it, tough.

If you go to Tesco and you don't like Dolmio sauce, you can buy Ragu or Jamie Oliver or Tesco own-brand (or you can still choose to make your own).

BuffyBot

I see Lidl UK running a very effective ad campaign on TV right now where they "surprise" people at an open air market by having them sample Lidl products before revealing the source.

Lidl was never my favourite of the two chains, but their range and quality has come on a fair bit since they first hit our shores. Both chains have secured a pretty large customer base and I don't think we'll see a significant fall in numbers anytime soon.

brooke 2

hfallada wrote: »

I love the fact that you can do a whole weekly shop in Lidl in about 15 mins. They realise we really dont need the choice of 25 different mouth washes or 5 brands of bin liners. Consumer prefer less choice and better value. I struggle to go into Tesco and be out within an hour. Plus car parks in Lidl are so small(but never full), that its not the usual trek through a car park like Tesco. Items like Avocados which were a luxury in Dunnes/Tesco, are cheap in Lidl. The fruit and veg in Lidl/ Aldi is always super fresh. I have yet to buy fruit/veg that was rotten within a few days, like some other supermarkets. The most shocking thing for me, was when I was in the fruit market in Dublin. I asked for a box of blood oranges and was told they were out of season for 6 weeks. But Tesco was still selling them.

Germans will tell you they shop in Lidl/Aldi, so they can save money, to buy things like a better car or foreign holidays.

I love the feeling that by shopping in Lidl/Aldi I have so much more money in my pocket than those misguided souls who would not be seen dead shopping there!!
And there are still some out there!!

Lidl's muesli is excellent. I pay €1.99 for it. Lifeforce muesli in Dunne's and SuperValue
varies from €3.50 to €5.00!!! And it is not as delicious as Lidl's!!

former legend

brooke 2 wrote: »

Lidl's muesli is excellent. I pay €1.99 for it. Lifeforce muesli in Dunne's and SuperValue
varies from €3.50 to €5.00!!! And it is not as delicious as Lidl's!!

But this is exactly the reason why I feel Aldi and Lidl are getting away with murder in their claims; you're not comparing like with like.

I'm a muesli-eater as well and Tesco own-brand is very good and is exactly the same price, €1.99, so the actual saving between Tesco and Lidl is precisely zero.

(Of course you could argue that the presence of Lidl in the market has forced others to reduce their prices, but that's another day's work)

brooke 2

fleet_admiral wrote: »

I have only recently started using Lidl (Aldi is too far) for the vast majoriy of my shopping. Yesterday I did a 90% full shop for me, the wife and son and it came to just over €50. As far as I am concerned I wouldnt get that in one of the symbol groups. I find the quality of their own brand items is far superior to the like of Tesco value, daily basics etc..
The remaining 10% goes to Supervalu for the items I cant get in Lidl. Ill be sticking with them

I remember how shocked I was at how much I got for a smaller amount of money when I originally started to shop in Lidl!