Woolworths and Coles are emphasising the threat of Aldi — is it really a competitive force to be reckoned with?

I fucking love Aldi. I shopped there when I was poor as hell in college and I'd still go there now if they had any nearby. Sure their selection is limited but what they have is legit and their deals are phenomenal.

they have totally upped their game in the last 10 years as well. they have way more stuff than ever and i barely need to go anywhere else anymore. got the best wine of my life there last winter too.

Woolies and Coles: How can we compete if we're not allowed to overcharge our customers?

They don't even compete, they price fix, their prices are the same (excluding deals)

Another thing I like about aldi is it doesn't have inane music and ads blasting at you over a P.A. If I go there when it's not peak time it's nearly silent which makes shopping feel very peaceful and makes me want to spend longer in the place.

Also much faster to navigate than colesworth due to less aisles of stuff I mostly have no interest in.

The Aldi near us recently added self serve checkouts. They work, they don’t nag and they still have an attendant to happily make small-talk and help customers.
- Yes! Another great point. I have a very high success rate with aldi self serve checkouts. Coles ones frequently have issues resulting in waiting for the attendant.
- Does anyone else think the voice on the self-serve checkouts sounds like Mr Handy from the Fallout TV series?
  Honestly I find the Aldi self-serve voice so much more annoying than the other ones.

the fact that they've squashed so much of the fucking market that Aldi is the only viable competitor they can think of - a chain so fucking small comparatively that an international friend I recently caught up with noted the same store availability as when she was last here a decade ago is a condemnation of the pair in and of itself

We had a local IGA open in our estate recently. There are some things that are more expensive than Colesworth, but only by a small margin.
The same when a Foodworks opened where we used to live.
Being able to stroll to the supermarket is a nice luxury; it is quicker to walk to IGA than to drive to the nearest Coles or Woolworths.

Wow, they even acknowledged that customers will go to ALDI then go to Colesworth afterwards because ALDI didn't have everything they needed. Sounds like real serious competition to me! About as threatening as a local market or butcher.

Yo half of the US would be starving if it wasn't for Aldi.

Aldi is less accessible for me but if this wasn’t the case I’d happily adjust to the limited range and shop there as exclusively as I could. Fuck Colesworth

The checkout staff at my local Aldi are so fast I swear they are super human or on meth ( i mean it is Perth). Colesworth on the other hand are slow.
- I can go either way, however I do prefer self-serve if I am in a hurry and only have a few things. That said, the sluggishness of the Woolworths ones, and the Twenty Questions whenever I try to use them (and the inference from them that I am a thief) means that I will go to the service desk instead.
  The friendliness of other Aldi customers is also refreshing. I have had other customers wave me through because i only have a couple of things; I usually buy a few Chupa Chups when I am checking out for those other customers, as a thankyou.
  Safeway and Coles customers are typically more self-absorbed and militant about the queue.
mine has them now. it's nice. I'm guessing they'll slowly add them to all locations eventually.

I guess it depends where you live and how you shop. Every ALDI I've been to in metropolitan SA has had terrible.range and since I already buy home brand products there is very little price difference. ALDI also tend to get inferior locations here so you have to go out of your way to shop at one, whereas a Coles, Woolworths, Foodland or Drakes will often be in a group of shops that includes one or two competitors, an independent fruit & veg grocer and maybe an independent butcher, fishmonger and liquor store. I have a local ALDI that I will occasionally walk to and buy a couple of things from, but I would never rely on it as part of my regular shops.