The quality of their products are a bit hit and miss…
I remember reading an article about 10 years or so ago about how Aldi purchased many of it’s one off special buys. At the time some of their buyers specialised in purchasing products for rebadging from factories with overruns or under forced foreclosures. Products from these sources may raise questions about quality as quality can be unknown until released for consumers to purchase. Aldi is also driven by price, this can also have consequences. Price also flows through to more regularly appearing special buys.
Aldi are also reported that they assume consumers buy the products based on price, and not because they are needed. Because some products are not needed, they are often not used (regularly if at all) and aren’t returned should quality be poor. Others accept quality issues as they think they have bought something cheap, where quality might not be perfect.
This is not to say all Aldi special buy products are like this, some are cheaper than equivalents elsewhere and have reasonable quality/are generally fit for purpose.
When we lived in Brisbane we shopped special buys occasionally, but ended up giving up as the ones of interest to us were a bit hit and miss. I am against creating unnecessary waste and found their special buys challenging this principle.
If one does buy a special buy, no matter how cheap or if it doesn’t perform as expected, it is important to exercise one’s consumer guarantees under the Australian Consumer Law, and return the product for a resolution. Hopefully over time it may drive retailer who sell cheap products to improve quality expectations of consumers.
