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Amazon buying Whole Foods

Started by golden eagle, June 16, 2017, 11:52:48 AM

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golden eagle

Quote from: jeffandnicole on June 24, 2017, 11:17:19 PM
Quote from: jakeroot on June 24, 2017, 10:32:47 PM
Quote from: US71 on June 24, 2017, 09:25:21 PM
I shop at Wally World, Aldi, and occasionally Harp's.

Is Aldi any good? There's none in Washington State just yet, but I've been interested in the shop since I heard about them entering the US market. Honestly, I'm not even sure what kind of store to compare it to. I wanna say it's larger than a 7-Eleven but smaller than a Walgreens.

Aldi has been around for quite a long time in the US, but they are expanding.  They are basically a small, no frills supermarket, along the lines of a Family Dollar but for groceries.  Save-a-lot is similiar to them.  Using your store comparisons, they are about twice the size of a standard Walgreens. Maybe on par size-wise with a Whole Foods.

I went to an Aldi in Virginia about a month ago, and they had some really good prices.


US71

Quote from: golden eagle on July 01, 2017, 11:56:54 PM
Quote from: jeffandnicole on June 24, 2017, 11:17:19 PM
Quote from: jakeroot on June 24, 2017, 10:32:47 PM
Quote from: US71 on June 24, 2017, 09:25:21 PM
I shop at Wally World, Aldi, and occasionally Harp's.

Is Aldi any good? There's none in Washington State just yet, but I've been interested in the shop since I heard about them entering the US market. Honestly, I'm not even sure what kind of store to compare it to. I wanna say it's larger than a 7-Eleven but smaller than a Walgreens.

Aldi has been around for quite a long time in the US, but they are expanding.  They are basically a small, no frills supermarket, along the lines of a Family Dollar but for groceries.  Save-a-lot is similiar to them.  Using your store comparisons, they are about twice the size of a standard Walgreens. Maybe on par size-wise with a Whole Foods.

I went to an Aldi in Virginia about a month ago, and they had some really good prices.

I do a lot of my grocery shopping at Aldi  Mostly private brands, but good quality. Ads start on Wednesday, so go by Saturday since some items sell out quickly (especially meat specials). Don't forget a quarter for your cart and some shopping bags (I grab a couple produce boxes, myself). But I've never had a problem.
Like Alice I Try To Believe Three Impossible Things Before Breakfast

jakeroot

Quote from: US71 on July 02, 2017, 12:53:33 PM
Don't forget a quarter for your cart

Is the quarter refundable?

Big John


briantroutman

Quote from: Big John on July 02, 2017, 09:30:03 PM
Quote from: jakeroot on July 02, 2017, 09:18:20 PM
Is the quarter refundable?
Yes when you return the cart.

At the one Aldi that I visited nearly 20 years ago, the carts were daisy chained together in the corral–each with a nylon strap and buckle plugged into the cart behind it. Inserting a quarter into a slot near the buckle acts like pressing the button on a seat belt...allowing you to pull the buckle free and use the cart. When you're done shopping and put the cart back in the corral, you insert re-insert the buckle, and your quarter pops out of the slot.

Perhaps someone who's familiar with Aldi today can comment as to whether the coin deposit setup still works the same way.

I remember thinking then (as a kid), that 25¢ was a rather low price to pay if you wanted to steal a shopping cart. But more logically, I'm sure that it's just intended to discourage people from leaving carts laying about the parking lot (and thereby reducing labor for cart pickups, claims for damage caused by carts, etc., so that Aldi can keep its prices low).

US71

Quote from: briantroutman on July 02, 2017, 09:56:31 PM


I remember thinking then (as a kid), that 25¢ was a rather low price to pay if you wanted to steal a shopping cart. But more logically, I'm sure that it's just intended to discourage people from leaving carts laying about the parking lot (and thereby reducing labor for cart pickups, claims for damage caused by carts, etc., so that Aldi can keep its prices low).

Yes.That is what they claim, at least.

The quarter "unlocks" the cart and is refunded when you lock the cart back.
Like Alice I Try To Believe Three Impossible Things Before Breakfast

jakeroot

Quote from: US71 on July 02, 2017, 10:01:35 PM
Quote from: briantroutman on July 02, 2017, 09:56:31 PM
I remember thinking then (as a kid), that 25¢ was a rather low price to pay if you wanted to steal a shopping cart. But more logically, I'm sure that it's just intended to discourage people from leaving carts laying about the parking lot (and thereby reducing labor for cart pickups, claims for damage caused by carts, etc., so that Aldi can keep its prices low).

Yes.That is what they claim, at least.

The quarter "unlocks" the cart and is refunded when you lock the cart back.

That sounds like a pretty good idea. If only there was some way to charge more than 25 cents. 1 dollar coins are rare at best, and a machine that holds onto a dollar bill is, besides being something that I've never heard of, probably rather clunky. Maybe a tap-and-go system that puts a $1 hold on your bank card, until you tap again to return? I'm not even sure if a hold of such a small amount is possible; just thinking outside the box here.

US71

Quote from: jakeroot on July 02, 2017, 10:37:40 PM
Quote from: US71 on July 02, 2017, 10:01:35 PM
Quote from: briantroutman on July 02, 2017, 09:56:31 PM
I remember thinking then (as a kid), that 25¢ was a rather low price to pay if you wanted to steal a shopping cart. But more logically, I'm sure that it's just intended to discourage people from leaving carts laying about the parking lot (and thereby reducing labor for cart pickups, claims for damage caused by carts, etc., so that Aldi can keep its prices low).

Yes.That is what they claim, at least.

The quarter "unlocks" the cart and is refunded when you lock the cart back.

That sounds like a pretty good idea. If only there was some way to charge more than 25 cents. 1 dollar coins are rare at best, and a machine that holds onto a dollar bill is, besides being something that I've never heard of, probably rather clunky. Maybe a tap-and-go system that puts a $1 hold on your bank card, until you tap again to return? I'm not even sure if a hold of such a small amount is possible; just thinking outside the box here.

A quarter is plenty, considering many customers will "pay it forward". Keeping a quarter in the car is easy. A dollar coin would be a bit much.
Like Alice I Try To Believe Three Impossible Things Before Breakfast

jakeroot

Quote from: US71 on July 02, 2017, 10:41:22 PM
Quote from: jakeroot on July 02, 2017, 10:37:40 PM
Quote from: US71 on July 02, 2017, 10:01:35 PM
Quote from: briantroutman on July 02, 2017, 09:56:31 PM
I remember thinking then (as a kid), that 25¢ was a rather low price to pay if you wanted to steal a shopping cart. But more logically, I'm sure that it's just intended to discourage people from leaving carts laying about the parking lot (and thereby reducing labor for cart pickups, claims for damage caused by carts, etc., so that Aldi can keep its prices low).

Yes.That is what they claim, at least.

The quarter "unlocks" the cart and is refunded when you lock the cart back.

That sounds like a pretty good idea. If only there was some way to charge more than 25 cents. 1 dollar coins are rare at best, and a machine that holds onto a dollar bill is, besides being something that I've never heard of, probably rather clunky. Maybe a tap-and-go system that puts a $1 hold on your bank card, until you tap again to return? I'm not even sure if a hold of such a small amount is possible; just thinking outside the box here.

A quarter is plenty, considering many customers will "pay it forward". Keeping a quarter in the car is easy. A dollar coin would be a bit much.

I'm only suggesting something more than a quarter because of your rather unenthusiastic reply to Brian, indicating (to me) that the quarter may not actually be doing its job (making sure carts are returned and not left out in the middle of the parking lot).

A dollar coin would not be the way to go. They aren't common enough. That's why I was thinking of a tap-to-pay system.

jeffandnicole

Yes, it's only a quarter, but the system works.  No need to fix something that isn't broken.

Besides, tap-to-pay systems are expensive and require maintenance. You seem to be completely oblivious to the whole reason why Aldi does what it does to keep prices low.

briantroutman

I'm going to make a wild guess that the coin slots on the carts of Aldi's European stores take a €1 coin, giving shoppers there more than four times the incentive to return the cart.

english si

Quote from: briantroutman on July 03, 2017, 12:01:53 AMI'm going to make a wild guess that the coin slots on the carts of Aldi's European stores take a €1 coin, giving shoppers there more than four times the incentive to return the cart.
Only the ones in Euro countries. In the UK it's £1, giving an extra little bit of incentive. I'd imagine that it's the second biggest coin everywhere in Europe.

I first came across these in France, where every store had them and it was 10F (so about a pound at the time) deposit in the thing. Every store with trolleys had them. In the UK it's a bit more hit and miss. My local big store doesn't - because it's got systems that stop one taking trolleys off site easily, and a large car park with trolley return areas, so there's someone out there returning them and it doesn't matter if you don't put it in the return area as they can get them too while out there (other stores want them in the return area so have the device), but the ones on the High Street do, because it's really easy to take the trolleys.

And, of course, the trolleys are worth far more than a pound. I had one in my student house's garden converted into a (very crappy) BBQ, which still had the chain thing on - courtesy of the previous tenants - though sans pound as they managed to get it out.

roadman

"And ninety-five is the route you were on.  It was not the speed limit sign."  - Jim Croce (from Speedball Tucker)

"My life has been a tapestry
Of years of roads and highway signs" (with apologies to Carole King and Tom Rush)

jakeroot

Quote from: jeffandnicole on July 02, 2017, 11:06:11 PM
Yes, it's only a quarter, but the system works.  No need to fix something that isn't broken.

Besides, tap-to-pay systems are expensive and require maintenance. You seem to be completely oblivious to the whole reason why Aldi does what it does to keep prices low.

I've never been to, or even seen an Aldi before. I'm not sure what, if anything, might be broken, nor what the goal of the store is. I was simply presenting alternative payment ideas based on two unenthusiastic opinions of the quarter system (briantroutman doesn't think a quarter is worth much, and US71 implies that it may not actually do its job, ensuring carts are properly corralled). If you think it works, that's great. Maybe I'm misinterpreting Brian and US71's words.

Brandon

Quote from: US71 on July 02, 2017, 12:53:33 PM
Quote from: golden eagle on July 01, 2017, 11:56:54 PM
Quote from: jeffandnicole on June 24, 2017, 11:17:19 PM
Quote from: jakeroot on June 24, 2017, 10:32:47 PM
Quote from: US71 on June 24, 2017, 09:25:21 PM
I shop at Wally World, Aldi, and occasionally Harp's.

Is Aldi any good? There's none in Washington State just yet, but I've been interested in the shop since I heard about them entering the US market. Honestly, I'm not even sure what kind of store to compare it to. I wanna say it's larger than a 7-Eleven but smaller than a Walgreens.

Aldi has been around for quite a long time in the US, but they are expanding.  They are basically a small, no frills supermarket, along the lines of a Family Dollar but for groceries.  Save-a-lot is similiar to them.  Using your store comparisons, they are about twice the size of a standard Walgreens. Maybe on par size-wise with a Whole Foods.

I went to an Aldi in Virginia about a month ago, and they had some really good prices.

I do a lot of my grocery shopping at Aldi  Mostly private brands, but good quality. Ads start on Wednesday, so go by Saturday since some items sell out quickly (especially meat specials). Don't forget a quarter for your cart and some shopping bags (I grab a couple produce boxes, myself). But I've never had a problem.

I've been to the Aldis around here.  I'm not really impressed.  The prices don't strike me as less than I can get at Food 4 Less or Meijer, and Aldi (having mostly store-branded items) doesn't really seem to be into coupons (which are big in this area).  I can pay less for a name-brand at Meijer using the sales and coupons than I can for the same store-brand at Aldi.

As it is, I do most of my grocery shopping at Meijer, Fresh Thyme (like Trader Joe's, but IMHO, better), and Mariano's Fresh Market.  If I'm looking for something else, it's Tony's Finer Foods, Jewel-Osco, or Food 4 Less.  Aldi (and Walmart for that matter) just never shows up on my grocery radar.
"If you think this has a happy ending, you haven't been paying attention." - Ramsay Bolton

"Symbolic of his struggle against reality." - Reg

jeffandnicole

#65
Quote from: jakeroot on July 03, 2017, 11:40:18 AM
Quote from: jeffandnicole on July 02, 2017, 11:06:11 PM
Yes, it's only a quarter, but the system works.  No need to fix something that isn't broken.

Besides, tap-to-pay systems are expensive and require maintenance. You seem to be completely oblivious to the whole reason why Aldi does what it does to keep prices low.

I've never been to, or even seen an Aldi before. I'm not sure what, if anything, might be broken, nor what the goal of the store is. I was simply presenting alternative payment ideas based on two unenthusiastic opinions of the quarter system (briantroutman doesn't think a quarter is worth much, and US71 implies that it may not actually do its job, ensuring carts are properly corralled). If you think it works, that's great. Maybe I'm misinterpreting Brian and US71's words.

I've never known the shopping cart thing to be an issue.  Put it this way - if the customer doesn't return a cart, somebody going to the store will just take that cart, and when they're done they'll put it away properly, getting someone else's quarter back.

So in the end, they don't need one (or multiple) people running around the parking lot getting carts all day.  Then they don't need to buy cart corrals.  Or replace as many shopping carts that got dented.  The only real expense was to install those devices that are pretty cheap on the carts, and that's that.



US71

Quote from: jeffandnicole on July 03, 2017, 12:18:02 PM

I've never known the shopping cart thing to be an issue.  Put it this way - if the customer doesn't return a cart, somebody going to the store will just take that cart, and when they're done they'll put it away properly, getting someone else's quarter back.

So in the end, they don't need one (or multiple) people running around the parking lot getting carts all day.  Then they don't need to buy cart corrals.  Or replace as many shopping carts that got dented.  The only real expense was to install those devices that are pretty cheap on the carts, and that's that.



Last two times I was there, someone got an extra quarter. It may have been left out as a "pay it forward", but someone locked it up and got the quarter.

If I only need 3-4 items. I'll just grab a banana box as "cart"
Like Alice I Try To Believe Three Impossible Things Before Breakfast

US71

Quote from: jakeroot on July 02, 2017, 10:50:14 PM


I'm only suggesting something more than a quarter because of your rather unenthusiastic reply to Brian, indicating (to me) that the quarter may not actually be doing its job (making sure carts are returned and not left out in the middle of the parking lot).

A dollar coin would not be the way to go. They aren't common enough. That's why I was thinking of a tap-to-pay system.

Explain.
Like Alice I Try To Believe Three Impossible Things Before Breakfast

english si

Basically jakeroot's notion was that a quarter is worth too little to bother reclaiming and a dollar coin would be better, but they don't exist in a common enough way, so a contactless bank-card being used to make the deposit was his suggestion.

I didn't think you had that sort of thing yet in America - hence Apple Pay's pointless existence...

It strikes me as something hard to implement, and a lot of hassle - you might as well lose the carts that people take for a quarter.

kalvado

Quote from: english si on July 03, 2017, 05:04:11 PM
Basically jakeroot's notion was that a quarter is worth too little to bother reclaiming and a dollar coin would be better, but they don't exist in a common enough way, so a contactless bank-card being used to make the deposit was his suggestion.

I didn't think you had that sort of thing yet in America - hence Apple Pay's pointless existence...

It strikes me as something hard to implement, and a lot of hassle - you might as well lose the carts that people take for a quarter.
I would say this is not that much about money, this is about message "we want you to keep things neat". Charging more doesn't really make that message stronger.
Those who are really determined to take a cart off the property wouldn't bother about a dollar or two - these days you need to spend well over $20 to fill the cart...

jakeroot

After actually looking up videos of how these things operate, they appear to be almost impossible to engineer with a tap-to-pay system. I guess a quarter will have to do! For now at least.

Quote from: english si on July 03, 2017, 05:04:11 PM
Basically jakeroot's notion was that a quarter is worth too little to bother reclaiming and a dollar coin would be better, but they don't exist in a common enough way, so a contactless bank-card being used to make the deposit was his suggestion.

I didn't think you had that sort of thing yet in America - hence Apple Pay's pointless existence...

It strikes me as something hard to implement, and a lot of hassle - you might as well lose the carts that people take for a quarter.

As for contactless bank cards, those are as rare as hen's teeth. I can't recall ever seeing one used before. Contactless payments began with mobile phones here, for the most part.

Most of the new chip machines have tap-to-pay functionality, but they lack the "wireless" logo that indicates such. The infrastructure is so new, the idea of tapping-to-pay is a bit foreign, but I think it'll become a more common payment method in the future, especially given how slow those chip readers are.

Quote from: kalvado on July 03, 2017, 06:06:41 PM
I would say this is not that much about money, this is about message "we want you to keep things neat". Charging more doesn't really make that message stronger.

But it's a monetary incentive. The value of a quarter drops every year, ergo, the incentive to return the cart is lower than ever. I'm not suggesting a $50 refundable deposit. Maybe a buck or two? The problem is that there's no easy "loonie" or "toonie" coin here in the US. The only common coin worth a damn is the quarter. So we're kind of stuck.

jbnv

Quote from: jakeroot on July 03, 2017, 07:29:03 PM
The problem is that there's no easy "loonie" or "toonie" coin here in the US. The only common coin worth a damn is the quarter. So we're kind of stuck.

Seriously?

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jakeroot

Quote from: jbnv on July 03, 2017, 07:50:52 PM
Quote from: jakeroot on July 03, 2017, 07:29:03 PM
The problem is that there's no easy "loonie" or "toonie" coin here in the US. The only common coin worth a damn is the quarter. So we're kind of stuck.

Seriously?

http://www.savingadvice.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/dollar-coin.png

$1 coins are not common enough to replace the quarter machines at Aldi.

When I say "easy" I mean "common".

tchafe1978

I do my grocery shopping at Aldi on a weekly basis, and believe me, the amount of the deposit to get your cart and then return it has never been an issue. A quarter works perfectly fine. And like somebody upstream said, many times the next customer will just hand you a quarter for your cart when you're done, saving everyone an extra step or two.

As far as prices and quality go, Aldi is very competitive and one par with other stores' private label brands, and in many cases better. The selection may seen limited, but that's because there is no need to carry five of the same item under five different brand names. That said, the variety of items sometimes gets old, but they do have weekly specials. And there is always Walmart or Piggly Wiggly in my area at least for those few items the Aldi doesn't carry. They have much improved their quality and selection from 10-15 years ago, when I would go there for the basics and someplace else for other items.

jeffandnicole

I forgot they changed the design of that dollar coin. I don't think I've even seen the new style.



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