Good and Bad Buying at Lidl and Aldi (***Please don't expire***)

yorkie_cook

think in the bubble bath they had a rhubarb one but didn't look too closely, think the shelf edge did list the cinnamon & frosted berries

maman

Plenty of the Abbot and Broome hand wash in my Aldi today. I agree they sound mostly  like Christmas perfumes but they were on the shelf with the other toiletries. 

Plenty of porridge oats too compared with Lidl. We needed some but I bought just one extra for stores. 😊

In fact, today's Aldi shop was the most 'normal' since Christmas. Checkouts were moving smoothly, cash desks opening and closing, no queueing in the aisles etc. Last week they told me they'd been hit hard with Covid but I suspect that they'd cut back too much on staffing post Christmas and were sailing too close to the wind. 

S_uk

One thing I've recently started to notice is how overt some of the big supermarkets are mentioning Aldi in their marketing/advertising/website. Tesco started doing their Aldi price match last year on a range of products, and the other day I noticed on a TV advert Sainsbury's have started doing the same thing and is front page of their main website. From news article:

'Sainsbury's takes on Aldi in supermarket price war'

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-56012719

maman

Yes, they're obviously concerned and rightly so. It'll be interesting to see how many people stick with the big supermarkets when they can get back to shopping in person. 

I read a survey earlier where Aldi and Lidl had still come out cheaper on a basket of household basics. I know that's true but I think the big names would fare even worse on a full shop. People aren't going to be fooled by loss leader basics. Are they? 🤔

S_uk

Yes, Which? magazine do their monthly price comparisons, both on a small basket of own label/branded items, then on a bigger shop including more brands comparing just the bigger supermarkets. Their latest comparison (in January) is below. Tesco/Sainsbury's may be matching a few hundred prices with Aldi, but given the many hundreds of other products, I don't think people who normally shop at Aldi/Lidl are going to be tempted away. Maybe this strategy is just about trying to stop people moving towards the so called discounters in the first place.

harz99

So Mr T is roughly 10% dearer than Asda on a big shop, slightly lower % on a small shop.
Just taking Asda prices it seems the multiplier from small to large shop costs is a factor of 8, if you then do 8 times the small Aldi shop cost you get a possible large Aldi shop cost at £147.60, £12.48 less than Asda and a whopping £27.87 less than Mr T.
Not very scientific I know before anyone picks fault, but that's a lot of cash over a year!
 

[Deleted User]

Lidl’s cat litter is abysmal. I’m having to empty the tray completely daily. 

Cat scan is much more expensive but works much better and probably works out at better value overall. 

Doc_N

harz99 said:

So Mr T is roughly 10% dearer than Asda on a big shop, slightly lower % on a small shop.
Just taking Asda prices it seems the multiplier from small to large shop costs is a factor of 8, if you then do 8 times the small Aldi shop cost you get a possible large Aldi shop cost at £147.60, £12.48 less than Asda and a whopping £27.87 less than Mr T.
Not very scientific I know before anyone picks fault, but that's a lot of cash over a year!
 

What I can tell you, based on actual figures, is that having Tesco deliveries for almost a year now, in place of Aldi and Lidl, has cost us around 35% more over that period.

No noticeable difference in what we’ve eaten.  Same stuff, higher prices.

mikb

I don't think people who normally shop at Aldi/Lidl are going to be tempted away. Maybe this strategy is just about trying to stop people moving towards the so called discounters in the first place

Then they're not doing a great job.

I've reduced my shop at Morrisons and shifted quite a few items to ALDI. The trigger for this was twofold.

Morrisons sent me one of those woolly surveys about "Your typical weekly shop" and what my opinion was on their prices versus the same thing as bought at a list of 6-7 other top retailers. I don't know. So I didn't answer it. It's obvious they want to hear "your prices are amazing and everywhere else is dearer".

Then they sent me a nag-mail to fill it in. Do you know what? I'm not going to go round all these retailers comparing prices. Do your own research. If you want my opinion then I still don't know. So you can have my uninformed opinion, is that good?

But, once Morrisons started removing items I buy from my local store (reducing the range), and bumping up prices on others, I made a point of taking a M. shopping/price list to ALDI and doing a comparison across everything I regularly buy. And, that was enlightening -- having been pushed to make the comparison by Morrisons marketing team and their surveys, I find that many items are so much cheaper at ALDI that it was worth going out of my way to shop there. And I have been since mid-2019.

S_uk

One thing I've found useful is that it's been easier to look up Aldi's prices on their website on a bigger range of products than in previous years (I assume due to click and collect now being offered). Now that mysupermarket isn't around I've found it easier to compare most of my shop and find the base prices of most of the things I buy.

The big supermarkets may end up adding more of these 'we match Aldi' prices on more products as time goes by, but at the end of the day I just don't see how they are going to match or beat them on price overall. Not unless they start doing certain things to save on costs which I can't see the likes of Tesco doing any time soon e.g. getting rid of customer service desks, asking people to pack at packing shelves, significantly cutting the range offered etc. That said who knows, if they keep losing market share in the long term.