Employees reveal on ZDF: This is how Lidl deceives its customers
Created: 07/23/2022, 08:55
By: Jan Oeftger
In the ZDF documentary "Lidl: Die Insider", employees talk about the discounter's sales tricks.
An expert sees "consumer deception".
Kassel – In the ZDF documentary "Lidl: Die Insider", some of the discounter's employees explain anonymously how Lidl wants to use tricks to make more profit.
The company does not seem to shy away from deceiving its customers.
According to hna.de, one of the insiders explains on ZDF, the tricks start with the shopping cart.
This is intentionally large so that the purchases look small and customers tend to buy more.
In addition, the trolley is inclined in such a way that the goods always slide in the direction of the push handle.
So the customer does not see his purchase and he buys more.
"If we had had smaller shopping trolleys at that time, Lidl would never have been able to produce the sales that it is now producing," the insider is certain.
The abolition of shopping baskets goes in a similar direction.
According to the insider, Lidl no longer has shopping baskets so that customers have to use a trolley.
Lidl has special sales tricks: price tags are above the products
But while other discounters also have large shopping carts and no baskets, Lidl apparently uses other tricks to confuse customers when shopping.
In almost all shops, the price tags are underneath the goods.
It's different at Lidl.
The right price can usually be found above.
This is intended to attract customers with a supposedly very low price, which actually belongs to a different product.
The branded products often take precedence over the private labels.
According to insiders, Lidl uses a few tricks to get customers to buy more.
(Iconic image) © Lino Mirgeler/dpa
Another accusation mentioned in the ZDF documentary is the handling of supposedly fresh fruit and vegetables.
According to this, bananas are harvested unripe and imported to Germany.
They are then artificially ripened by gases.
This allows Lidl to decide for itself when the bananas are ready for sale.
Certainly, however, this method also means that less overripe food has to be thrown away.
Lidl deceives customers with biowashing and greenwashing
But the discounter is also tricky when it comes to food.
According to an insider, Lidl wants to give itself an environmentally friendly image by working with the “Bioland” cultivation association.
There is another organic seal on all Bioland products.
Only the other organic logo can be seen on other products.
At least at first glance, customers could mistake products for Bioland products.
The problem: In contrast to Bioland products, the organic products only meet the minimum organic standard.
"All of Lidl's Bio-Organic products are absolutely made to be close to Bioland," explains another marketing insider.
"This is absolute biowashing," the insider is certain.
"When I heard that, I sometimes had the feeling that I was kidding people a bit.
Company: | Lidl |
|---|---|
Headquarters: | Neckarsulm |
Sales volume: | EUR 57 billion |
Founding: | 1932 |
The Lidl insiders also see a deception of the customers with the one-way bottles.
Lidl aggressively advertises that every bottle consists of 100 percent old bottles.
However, according to an insider from the beverage market industry, one aspect is being left out.
The demand could not be met with the material from the old bottles.
“So there is another construction site here that we don’t know about.
So something else has to be bought from outside.” Expert Thomas Fischer calls it “greenwashing” because there is a “loss of at least five percent” with every recycling process.
"This is of course consumer deception."
Lidl feels its own brands after the branded products
Another "scam" are Lidl's own products.
These are adapted to the original as far as legally possible.
This refers to both the appearance of the packaging and the taste.
The former marketing employee sees this critically, as it enriches oneself at the expense of the real brands.
Often even the branded product and the private label are produced by the same manufacturer.
According to
ZDF
, these are almost forced to do so, since otherwise Lidl would also remove the branded product from the range.
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Recently, customers had been annoyed with Lidl for other reasons.
(Jan Oeftger)