After a year of “record sales”, discount supermarket Aldi have announced that they will be moving online.
Having had a good year, becoming the sixth biggest supermarket in the country, and expanding aggressively, Aldi will be taking their low price deals onto the internet to combat the big four stores there.
It will not launch an entire online store, unlike the other stores, however. The grocer has said that it will be selling its cases of wine online from early next year, in the Spring, alongside certain non-food items.
The items will be available for delivery, or for collection from a third party location.
Aldi have had a good year, while their main competitors, Tesco, Morrisons, Asda and Sainsburys have each had their share of troubles. The German discounter has reported a 31 per cent rise in full-year sales, selling £6.93 billion.
However, the discounter wasn’t unaffected by the big four stores lowering their prices in the price war over the last few years, and have had to cut their prices recently, leading to a lower £11 million operating profit fall.
The chief executive of Aldi UK, Matthew Barnes, said: “We refuse to be beaten on price by anyone. We’re maintaining a significant price gap of at least 15pc on an average basket of goods – people are seeing that value at the checkout, tasting the quality at home and coming back to do a full weekly shop, time and time again.”
Aldi’s business model is efficient, saves customers time, saves customers money, and their streamlined stores are simple and cost the chain as little as possible. This, combined with the surprising quality for value of their products, is a winning equation.
However, they are expanding very quickly, and the larger supermarkets, especially Morrisons and Tesco, have had to learn a lesson about the dangers of expanding too quickly, and so Aldi will have to be careful not to fall into the same trap.
