One of the things that has changed since I moved out is that I've been located a lot closer to an Aldi store and well...shopping there is quite an experience.
There has been one thought I've been toying with for the past week though. Does Aldi's neglectful treatment of merchandising actually possibly help them?
My main thought on this came to do with their high seller products. Do you want to buy something from Aldi where it looks like the entire shelfload of stock is still there, or does the fact that it looks like it's selling well further improve your perception of value in a peer pressure type sense?
I keep managing to jump back and forth however I think I may have finally come to a conclusion. Thinking back a full shelf does look better, more professional and more aesthetically appealing. However Aldi's personal treatment reinforces their brand image and associations which are about the fact that they save money by cutting down costs anywhere. The visual manifestation of this further instills the brand image in your mind and makes you believe that these must be the cheapest things around.
So in all it's a bit of a wash consumer wise, so it comes down to the fact that Aldi is saving money doing it this way as well. So as long as it's working for them they should keep their crummy stocking setups.
2 comments:
Actually, every time I go to the one in the city they're running out of stock. I usually go around 5 or 6pm though, after uni. They're out of bread and cheese products usually, and some of the other things look noticeably diminished too. Also their lack of soy milk disappoints me! But otherwise I find Aldi shopping an enjoyable experience and I like their chocolate.
The whole Aldi business model is very interesting. We did some monitoring for Aldi and it was amazing the amount of chatter around their products. There was a heap of hype around discovery - people feeling they have found gold when they find something cheap + quality.
In the same way, I think an empty shelf is a consumer recommendation - a good look for Aldi.
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