Corona, customers with high demands, strong competition: Both Aldi Nord and Aldi Süd now also want to conquer online retail - and rely on old ties and smart ideas.
Düsseldorf - At Aldi * we have been going our separate ways for 60 years.
The brothers Theo and Karl Albrecht * shared their company empire
in
"Aldi Nord"
and
"Aldi Süd" in
1961, after they had virtually invented the "modern discounter" * with the expansion of their retail chain.
Now one is apparently about to turn around, but growing competition and probably also the Corona * crisis are not leaving the supermarket giants without a trace.
Aldi Süd recently announced that it would close four branches, now Aldi Nord is following suit and is separating from four of its branches - by the end of 2022 there should be only 48 instead of 56 of them.
In difficult times it is better to move closer together, that seems to be the motto at Aldi again.
A first, consistent step is the "modernization of own brands", as both groups announced last year, "in order to consolidate its market position, secure competitiveness and expand price leadership".
Combine purchasing quantities, create common brands and packaging and thus work more efficiently - when Aldi saves, customers ultimately save through cheaper offers.
The standardization of the standard range and the promotional goods should also make shopping easier for customers of both groups.
Video: Aldi Nord and Aldi Süd merge product range
Aldi Nord and Aldi Süd now also officially want to go hand in hand with the path to online retail - for the first time since the big break, a "joint operating company" was founded in Düsseldorf specifically for this purpose.
The aim is not only to expand the non-food range on the Internet, but also to finally get started with the grocery trade, reports the
Lebensmittel Zeitung
on Thursday.
60 years after the separation, both discounters are to work on a “uniform online shop” that “does not have any regional differentiation”.
For a long time, customers of both Aldi chains have been able to order
goods online
via
"Aldi Delivery"
- primarily non-food items, electrical products and furniture - and have them delivered either to the branch or directly to their home.
With the new
Aldi E-Commerce Verwaltungs GmbH
, in which North and South each have a 50 percent stake, they want to jointly deliver groceries and "everyday goods".
According to the
LZ
,
the joint venture is
each headed by a managing director: Moritz Scheffler, who was previously Global Sales Manager at Henkel, goes on board for Aldi Nord, and Kai Schmidhuber, formerly responsible for digitization at L'Oréal, for Aldi Süd.
Aldi Nord and Aldi Süd are launching offensive online trading together
The Aldi Süd homepage has already undergone a relaunch, so that many groceries including price and product description can already be viewed here or in the appropriate app.
In terms of IT, the group is already preparing to use it as a purchasing platform for e-commerce and e-food - i.e. as an online shop.
The
Real.de
online market
, in which Aldi is showing more and more interest,
could also
play
an important role
.
Niclas de Lope, member of the board of directors at Aldi Nord,
told
LZ a
few weeks ago that the online channel had "enormous potential" and should be expanded further.
In addition, collaborations - similar to the one that exists with Instacart in the USA - are conceivable.
As the
LZ has
learned, the foreign subsidiaries of Aldi * in the USA, Australia and the UK have initiated the offensive in terms of online trading, as Germany and Austria have been “more and more cautious in this field”.
Perhaps Aldi Nord and Aldi Süd have only deterred the experience of the competition so far: Lidl * has discontinued its online grocery range, while Rewe * is keeping its popular delivery service running - not exactly lucrative.
With its products in the low-price segment, things could be difficult for Aldi on the online market as well.
Only together do you seem to believe that you can face the challenges.
Discounters see their future in the digital: Everything should be possible via app
In the future, digital retrofitting is also planned within the branches of both groups: only digital price tags are to be used here by the end of 2021.
The big advantage that competitor Lidl is already using is that it can respond quickly and flexibly to demand and prevent storage bottlenecks.
The digital price tags, which are supposed to be part of a billion-dollar program at Aldi, also save employees time.
The changing product range no longer has to be provided with the right prices every time - this is done with just one click.
All Aldi branches worldwide will then work in the same way.
According to
Chip.de
, employees are already
benefiting from the large-scale digital offensive
.
Internal documents, company promotions, vacation requests, working hours and overtime are recorded
in the
“Aldi Go” app
.
Aldi is already using the practical app in Germany, Great Britain, Austria, Italy and the USA.
The aim is to collect information that can later be converted into your own loyalty program.
According to
Chip.de
, this could mean in future for customers to receive vouchers and to be able to query individual store offers via app.
Customers should even be able to unblock their shopping carts soon.
Video: Unlock shopping carts via app: Everything will be different at Aldi and Co.
With its
"Lidl Plus" app
, the Aldi competitor is already using various of these options for itself.
At Edeka * you can also order groceries and non-food via the app and pick them up directly at the checkout - as well as redeem vouchers and pay cashless.
The technical progress is well received here and Aldi now wants to jump on this train.
If Aldi Nord and Aldi Süd offer the same own brands throughout Germany in the future, the digital concepts will not only be more agile, they will also be advertised more efficiently.
In the price war with the other discounters, branded products - previously these would have been inconceivable in the concept - will play an increasingly important role at Aldi, as it has been found that they boost sales.
That is why both Aldi Nord and Aldi Süd have the new shelf concepts in front of the tills.
These not only create space, but also present the offers for customers in a more visually pleasant way than, say, rooting tables.
Aldi Nord and Aldi Süd are still separate companies - and yet they are visibly getting closer: bakery shops, branded products and now online trading - together they go on the offensive.
(cos) * Merkur.de is part of the nationwide Ippen-Digital network.