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Germany: Aldi Nord also tests loyalty points

Updated: 1 day ago

Discount Retail Chain Aldi Nord lets its customers stick red stickers on trading cards as a test to reward them for their shopping loyalty. The test is limited in time and place for the time being, but it could sound out the chances of success of a follow-up solution in the app.


There are several primal fears that drive customers in the German food retail sector. The moment when someone in the queue in front of you says: "I've got it right." When the shopping cart again has a wheel that rolls in all directions, but not in the desired one. When the self-checkout constantly complains that the goods have been wrongly placed on the checkweigher.


Or probably the worst: When the cashier asks again with a tired smile whether you are already a member of the current bonus program, collect loyalty points or have already installed the super useful savings app on your smartphone.


So far, there has been one last bastion that at least spared customers from these questions and it could now fall: Aldi. Because the times when it was possible to shop at the Albrecht brothers without scanning QR codes or pulling out collector's booklets seem to be coming to an end.


Belgium is already collecting

Actually, this is already the case, at least in Belgium. There, the discounter has now significantly expanded its test launched last year with digital "ALDI points", which can be collected in the app and used for free items or discounts.


According to media reports, this is to be the case in all 440 Belgium Aldi stores by the end of the summer.


At the same time, point collectors are now encouraged to complete so-called "challenges" to make the point acquisition more playful: Currently, you receive about 500 bonus points if you shop four times in a Belgian Aldi store in August or buy at least four own private label branded cheese items there. (In Germany, Penny is trying a similar function, the "savings promotions", in which certain items have to be purchased within a given period of time in order to receive a discount coupon afterwards.)


30 euros discount for loyalty shopping

In its home market, Aldi Nord has so far held back on similar initiatives. And this is despite the fact that all competitors around have activated digitally-based programs for customer loyalty and are constantly refining them.


According to supermarket blog information, however, the discounter is currently testing how collecting points is received by its own customers.


In (at least) one store on the outskirts of Berlin, a loyalty points campaign has been running since the beginning of June, in which participating customers are promised credits of 30 euros if they have previously shopped at Aldi accordingly often. To do this, the discounter issues analogue trading cards in the store on which loyalty points can be attached. The principle explained on it is very simple: so if you shop ten times for at least 30 euros, you will get a one-time discount of 30 euros, ideally this corresponds to around 10 percent rebate if you buy just above the minimum amount.


The inevitable health insurance question

The campaign will be advertised extensively at the stores by banners. Posters in front of and at the entrance also point to this. And at the checkout, the cashier actually asks when paying: "Do you collect loyalty points?"


The red stickers issued as a result are still available until the end of the current month; according to employees, the discount can still be redeemed afterwards, without a minimum purchase value, as it says on the card. Cash payment is excluded. Whether there will be an extension of the action was unclear to the staff on site when asked.


According to the information on the collection card, collecting and redeeming is limited to this specific Aldi store.


Try out the basics first

In any case, the analogue loyalty points test shows that Aldi Nord can no longer completely ignore the issue of customer loyalty in this country either - and is cautiously feeling its way forward. While the competition is adding more and more complicated app mechanisms, Aldi Nord is sticking to the basics for the time being.


The comparatively high refund in the current test is particularly striking. The discount of a regular loyalty program would probably have to be in the low single-digit range to be profitable at all from a discounter's point of view. (This is also the case with Aldi in Belgium.)

It is possible that Aldi is aiming for maximum participation with the 30-euro promise in order to test what proportion of regular customers could be persuaded to collect points at all; or whether sales can be increased in individual product groups, which may then not be acquired from the competitors directly opposite the location (Rewe and dm). Maybe you just want to test the processes (checkout training, logistics of the stickers, redemption process).


Precursor to the app?

If it turns out in the end that enough customers are participating, Aldi Nord believes that this could speak in favour of switching to the digital system from Belgium, which is directly integrated into the existing Aldi app, even if the percentage of participants would then perhaps be lower.



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