Discount Retail Chain Aldi Süd (German family owned) enters e-grocery and starts home deliveries in Germany. This is an unusual move, so far grocery discounters have stayed away from online competition.
Aldi Süd enters e-grocery From June, Aldi Süd will test the food delivery service in the city of Mülheim (North Rhine-Westphalia), where the company is headquartered. Initially, only employees will be able to order groceries in the online store or app, but already in the fourth quarter the service will be available to all residents, reports the German trade magazine "Lebensmittel Zeitung". Prices the same as in a stationary store Customers will be able to choose from 1,300 items, including fresh and frozen products. In the stationary store, the chain offers 1,700 indices at identical prices. Delivery will be carried out by electric vans, from Monday to Saturday. It is not yet known what its delivery costs will be. Aldi Süd is carrying out this test in close cooperation with its colleagues at Aldi Nord, retaildetail.eu reports.
Competition in e-grocery is growing This is an unusual step by a discounter. In the UK, Aldi tested the delivery in partnership with Deliveroo, but these trials were discontinued. In the United States, the network works with Instacart. The biggest rival, Lidl, also does not sell food online, but conducts online sales of non-food products (in Poland, the Lidl e-store has been operating since 2019; in turn, Biedronka cooperates with Glovo in the field of food delivery, while in 2022 it launched the Biedronka Home platform - editor's note).
The reason for refraining from such a decision was obvious: it is almost impossible to run a profitable business on the Internet, selling cheap products at small margins. In this way, however, discounters gave the fields to supermarkets, which are constantly expanding their e-commerce offer. Aldi's move, at a time when consumers are more price sensitive than ever, can only increase competition in the e-grocery industry.
