I happen to be lucky enough to be able to do most of my shopping at the Victoria Market in Melbourne. I used to shop three days a week there buying very little from the supermarkets. However, with age, I am only able to visit once a week with someone who takes the items home for me. I buy 90% of meat, cheese and vegetables at the market with huge savings. I nearly have a heart attack when I am forced to go to the supermarket to buy these items. I also have a stall at the Vic Market who provides me with many condiments and Italian based products at cheaper than I can purchase at the supermarket, if at all. It is only things like bread, cleaning products, hygiene and the occasional carton of mini cokes or canned vegetables that we purchase from the supermarket. The brochures are scanned for specials including Aldiâs Wednesday and Saturday specials. Eggs are bought from a colleague who keeps hens, not necessarily cheaper than the market, but I prefer to purchase from him. Overall, I think that we save a lot by shopping this way. Costco would be a possibility if we had a large family and plenty of storage space and did not mind eating the same thing over and over again.
Yes i agree with that.I will always shop at Woolies pick up the bargains i am after.Then do the same at Coles pick up the specials.You can save quite a bit basically getting top brand products basically at Aldi prices.And naturally Aldi has stories crop up the odd time with food going off.Stuff packaged in the wrong containers etc.As they say it pays to shop around
i went into our local Aldi the other day and counted all their FOOD products and it was only 433, yet their website says each store carries about 1300 items so over 867 were non or so called non grocery items, how can Aldi be called a supermarket.
Because ALDI doesnât have ten different versions of the same product. Their whole business model is to simplify and increase efficiency. Youâll find that ALDI do, in fact, stock a large range of all the food basics our society uses.
Did you know that Coles used to be a Crazy-Clarks-style $2 shop before becoming a convenience store, then branching into supermarketry (if thatâs a word⊠It is now thanks to linguistics)? Nothing is black and white, and things change and progress.
If you donât want choice and accept (nutritionally, country of origin, product size etc) what Aldi wants to sell to you, then this model might be okay.
Woolworths and Coles are starting to follow the same trend with their âown brandâ products. Well, I remember other supermarkets that also did it here in the past but ALDI may have started the lasting trend here but the others have caught on fast. Other large foreign chains such as Lidl follow the same practice. Look at many of the âown brandâ products in Woolies or Coles and notice the country of origin etc, they get it where it is cheapest, size is decreasing but prices go up and choice is being reduced.
The main benefit of Woolies and perhaps to some extent Coles is that there is some national ownership of shares.
I visited our local aldi for my own survey of its products, I understood because it was a small store it had 1350 products in store it took me 3 hours to count all, Grocery, Meat, Dairy Fruit & Veg (all food items) as 540 so that made all non labeled Grocery as 790. I used to own a mini supermarket back in 1990âs, outer western sydney, with 3200 items of which 3150 were food. I find Aldi an aberration in Grocery in Australia every IGA carries more Food items than Aldi, yet people will go to Aldi, where they donât have to tell anyone where their money trail goes, NO financials to Securities Commission or ASX as it is a Private family owned Company in Germany. Time ATO changes it rules to make these companies more accountable.
That is a little oversimplification, there was a Coles variety store which although were not bargain basement junk stores that these retailers are nowadays they were catering to the mass consumption consumer goods market and then came a new division call âColes New Worldâ which was set up separately as a supermarket that sold groceries.
Both types of stores were distinct and operated as seperate entities, one didnât grow out of the other.
Eventually Coles variety stores model withered I guess under the competition from the low cost junk stores and slowly died out and the supermarket chain continued to succeed and evolved into what we now know today as Coles.
I remember being able to buy fabric off a roll, the selection of clothing was broader and so on in the Coles Variety Stores. And let us not forget that Heaven Scent (yep the smell was heavenly) Coles Restaurant where they made the most glorious of Malted Milkshakes and Thickshakes with the buttery Raisin Toast to accompany that, or who remembers their freshly made and delicious sandwichesâŠthe memories!
Thanks for the information! My manager must have been mistaken. It just goes to show, you can only rely on primary sources! 
Coles variety was not a junk $2 store, though the prices were inline with the era and you could buy ladies and gents underwear at afforable prices, kitchen pans and utensils which still last today sold items that would last not like the throw away items of today.
Our closest supermarket (Woollies) marks down progressively during the dayâŠtends to be after restocking occurs where older stock is moved to the front/top. I expect easier to do at that time.
We are also happy to buy significantly marked down produce nearing its best before date. The only ones we might think twice are those which have use by dates and we are unlikely to consume quickly.
As Aldi use their own store brands compared to Woolworths and Coles it would be interesting to know the Australia content/product percentage of the Christmas baskets from each of the supermarkets. This is possibly important when Choice has found most of Aldi products as a whole are made either from imported product or made in Australia from imported product,
If Choose has time, it would also be interesting to know the total star rating of the 16 food products in the basket as well (adding up all the food product star rating over the total number of possible stars which should be 90).
The above may provide better appreciation of the results, rather than based on pure $$$.
Such basket comparisons seem as relevant as the âcomparison rateâ in finance. Nice PR but it is a defined âshopâ that usually does not reflect what any particular individual buys and may thus be interesting but misleading if your âshopâ is different. It becomes irrelevant in the case of Aldi if you are not into private branding sans other choices, accepting Aldiâs private branding has been quite successful and Woolies and Coles have started to emulate it - while also keeping more or fewer choices on the shelves.
Aldi is a different shopping experience than Woolies or Coles or IGA, and I submit direct comparisons just based on price for Aldiâs house branded choice of one product mix is always curious, accepting cost conscious shoppers might not care about more.
