With rising inflation rates and warnings of price hikes from retailers across the sector, consumers have had to budget more intensely than ever to ensure things keep running smoothly in their day to day lives. As such, retailers have had to make some changes in pricing and offer price cuts or discount deals wherever they can in order to draw in customers, as well as to retain their current customers.
Whilst industry giants like Walmart and Costco are the first names to come to mind when thinking of where to shop for groceries, customers have recently been discovering alternate stores who offer more value for money. One such store that is standing out for its affordability and wide range of offerings is Aldi.
Shoppers are ditching Costco and Walmart for this German-born supermarket
Aldi, a supermarket chain that has been showing significant growth in popularity recently, is often the topic of focus on social media platforms like Facebook or Reddit and the posts are all positive in nature.
Fans of the grocery chain are often having discussions with each other regarding the low prices offered in store and what the notorious “aisle of shame” has on offer each week. The “aisle of shame” is an aisle in the store that changes up its offerings every Wednesday with the items being on offer for a limited time with no restocking option.
The retailer’s online popularity is a perfectly accurate reflection of its in-store numbers as well, it appears. According to data cited from Placer.ai, Supermarket News has determined that the German grocer was able “to increase foot traffic by double digits for nearly every month last year, missing that target only once (in December).”
The actual statistics which are listed below are really impressive when considering the state of the retail landscape in recent months, perhaps even years. The following figures are recorded in terms of foot traffic at Aldi stores:
- January: Up 15.7%
- February: Up 22.9%
- March: Up 22.6%
- April: Up 18.5%
- May: Up 20.4%
- June: Up 21.4%
- July: Up 18.2%
- August: Up 20.5%
- September: Up. 18.2%
- October: Up 13.1%
- November: Up 15.2%
- December: Up 8.8%
Even though the retailer missed its double digit target for December, an 8.8% increase is still incredibly impressive. This 8.8% increase is double the surge in foot traffic that Aldi’s closest growing competitor H-E-B recorded. For that same December, H-E-B recorded 3.6% of year over year growth.
Costco still has Aldi beat in this one metric
The monthly average visit duration was another metric studied by Placer.ai. The yielded results revealed Costco, the beloved wholesale discount retailer as the store where customers linger on the longest — and Costco topped the list by a large margin.
According to the collected data, “Costco shoppers spend between 37 and 40 minutes browsing the orderly aisles before making their way toward the checkout, with November showing the longest average visit (40.3 minutes) and February, April, May, and July sharing the spot for the shortest average visit (37.4 minutes).”
Walmart took second place with its customers spending anywhere from 32 to 35 minutes perusing the many aisles of the big box store.
These metrics do stand to reason despite both stores offering higher price points that of Aldi. This is due to the vast size of these stores — the larger the real estate, the longer it might take the average customer to get around the store. This rings especially true for Costco as it uses a warehouse layout and even offers a map on its app to prevent shoppers from getting lost in store.
Supermarket News drew a similar conclusion after sifting through the gathered data.
Additionally, the data also concluded that “those shopping at dollar stores, in comparison to those shopping at grocers or warehouse clubs, took relatively little time, averaging between 15 and 17 minutes to conduct their business.”