Aldi breaks with fixed low prices
For the first time in 40 years, customers can now find offers in Aldi on selected days in Denmark, according to Dansk Handelsblad.
While Danish grocery chains have largely used bargain prices to attract customers, clienteles have never seen such a sign in Aldi’s Danish stores. A fundamental principle of the Aldi concept is to offer customers regular low prices every day, both at home and internationally.
This price principle, however, is not valid anymore. Now, Danish customers for the first time find so-called “Red Offers” in the chain's 189 Danish stores.
According to Finn Tang, CEO of Aldi Denmark, the German grocery chain is not doing too well among Danish price hunters. Therefore, and to remake the Aldi brand in Denmark, customers will be able to find what he calls “great deals” in Aldi’s Danish stores every Friday, Monday and Thursday
Aims at Rema 1000
- Clearly, if we need more customers into the store, we must also listen to what our customers say. Our basic DNA are regular low prices every day, and we must continue to be the cheapest at the fixed low prices. But that just has not been enough to create success in the Danish market. The Danish consumer has a good merchant gen and wants a good offer. And we have been totally absent on this issue for 40 years, says Tang about the reason for breaking Aldi’s price principle.
He explains that the chain in two recent major price surveys, in Søndagsavisen and Politiken, proves to be the cheapest grocery chain in Denmark, but the customers does not know that! Therefore, Finn Tang believes that “good deals” and more fresh goods in the stores are important prerequisites for creating greater customer traffic in the discount chain.
There is no doubt that Aldi aims at Rema 1000 with is new strategy. The Norwegian discount chain is very successful in the Danish market, it grows fast and is Denmark's most popular grocery chain right now.
Eataly do not work in Denmark
At the other end of the scale to discount stores like Rema 1000 and Aldi, is Eataly; now facing big problems in Denmark. The concept operates at key addresses in major cities around the world, but in price conscious Denmark, with a relative high share of discount chains it doesn’t seem to work, and Eataly has decided to close it’s 2000 m2 store in the heart of Copenhagen.
There are 38 Eataly stores around the world with the highest number concentrated in Italy. Worldwide, there are two stores in Japan, Dubai, and New York City, one in Chicago, Boston, Hollywood, Istanbul, São Paolo, Seoul, Munich, and soon one in Stockholm, where Eataly hopefully will have more success than in Denmark.