Was reading a very interesting article last night concerning online shopping for groceries in Great Britain . Even though the demographics are vastly different there , population density , transport networking etc , most of the big supermarket chains are seeing a massive growth in online shopping .
Cyber-supermarkets are already happening overseas . You walk down "cyber " aisles on screen and choose what you need to purchase . As a mental exercise and looking ahead to our future buying patterns do you think ALDIS not offering an online delivery service for groceries , like the big two , Coles and Woolies , will affect their market penetration here . I know they have done well to date price wise to gain a strong foothold but I’m looking ahead . Would be interested to hear what others think
We gave up with the online groceries at Coles and Woolworths. Whenever we purchased meat from Woolies online it would have an expiry date of one day. After speaking to various people at different levels of management they all said the same thing, which still makes no sense to me. Apparently people were complaining that the meat expiry dates were causing issues because they’d only get a few days before the meat had to be eaten. So the solution, as Woolworths so cleverly devised, was to only sell meat with a one day expiry date to ensure that customers ate it on the day it was purchased. I kid you not.
A lot of the times with both Coles and Woolies we’d order items that weren’t actually available and we’d either get a substitute that we didn’t like, or nothing. Plus items were always missing that we’d been charged for and we always had to call up to get refunds for the missing content which would take over a week before they’d be processed back into our bank accounts.
As for Aldi not doing online shopping. We live in Tassie, so we don’t even get any Aldi’s. I’d be happy just to see them set up a few regular stores around here that we can walk into.
ALDI cannot manage putting sufficient product information on their current website so I doubt they would handle operating the second business. ALDI is known for an incredibly stream-lined business plan (or that’s how they market themselves, anyway) so an online shop may not be in their best interests currently.
Online and other premium frills sort of ‘flys in the face’ of the ALDI low cost supermarket model, its a bit like jetstar being asked to offer a business class.
I doubt Aldi will offer online shopping in the future. For people who are housebound, this is a shame. I would say that if they did offer online shopping their prices would have to go up as for every online order they have to have a dedicated staff member to fill that order, pack it, etc etc. Personally, I’d prefer the cheaper prices. .
