Just read this thread, I found it interesting as a retail employee. Given I work in one of the Big 4, I understandably voted yes in the poll on this thread!
Our online prices are the same as in-store, and loose stock drives me up the wall. It takes so much longer to pick that stuff than it does the pre-packaged stuff! I often find the quality of pre-packed produce is better than the loose stuff too, not always of course. Certainly loose stuff is less consistent in size, some days loose onions (for one example) can be huge and the next day they're tiny. Same with carrots, and to a lesser extent parsnips. Loose gala apples do look better quality than the pre-packed ones I must admit, and certainly more of the size apple I would rather buy. I knew there was something I meant to get this morning...
We're expecting to be free of single-use carrier bags in my store by the end of August, and we can't wait. We'd have them gone already if we had our way, but customers complain when we run out of bags for their shopping. As it stands, we estimate no carrier bags will save us around an hour (I kid you not!) per average shift. You really would be surprised how long it takes to open up the bags and get them set up and ready for picking! So yeah, we're going to be much more productive when the bags go, although I think we're having to keep the clear bags for meat and loose produce. Which I'd also love to see be eliminated, but until FSA change their requirements on that I don't see it happening.
As for my own personal supermarket situation, unsurprisingly I do a lot of shopping in my store. Aldi is less than 2 minutes' walk away, Tesco Express is 5 minutes the other way, Sainsburys 5 minutes away (due to the road layout not really being ideal for pedestrians), a larger Tesco 7 minutes away, Morrisons 15 minutes away and Asda about 12 minutes away. I do have Lidl about 16 minutes away as well, and Waitrose almost 10 minutes away. Not to mention the other little shops of course.
I have been known to frequent Aldi semi-regularly but that depends what I need. I don't do much shopping in any one place, as I live on my own and I shop accordingly. Besides, with all that choice in my area it would be daft to do just one shop a week. With working in a supermarket 5 days a week, it's easier anyway to do 3 or 4 small shops a week.
Aldi and Lidl don't really suit me that well. I like that stuff is fairly cheap (although even without discount some stuff is cheaper in Asda than Aldi) but I don't like the quality of some of their stuff. Their toastie bread used to be 44p, 11p cheaper than Asda, which made it so much better to get from Aldi. Since it went up to 50p, the value is not there and I swear blind the quality's dropped. For a 5p difference, and better taste, even on a day off I'd rather do the walk to/from Asda and get my bread from there. Similar with coffee. I used to love the Aldi gold roast coffee, excellent value at £1.89 (or thereabouts) for a 200g jar. However, like the bread I swear blind the quality has gone down since they reduced it in price from £2.05. Asda's version is £2.24 currently for a 200g jar, so quite a significant difference in price. However, even though I love my quality coffee, I'm having to be tight-fisted currently and am buying Asda's Smart Price coffee for 77p. A 100g jar of coffee just about lasts me a week, and like today when I ran out of coffee I could have gone to Aldi for it. However, it was deemed worth it to walk to Asda and get my cheap coffee as I'm on a tight budget this month. There's also a FAR better range of coffee in Asda than Aldi, and that is what matters a lot to me. I've also grown keen on the Italian style coffee with the Extra Special branding. £1.88 for a 100g jar but oh my days it's just so nice! Try getting something like that in Aldi...
Same thing with biscuits. There's not much in the world more enjoyable than putting the feet up with a good quality coffee and a packet of chocolate digestives. Aldi do them for 42p (I think!) and Asda do them for 44p. Which one do I go for, when I'm not on a crazy fitness improvement plan that is? Asda's ones to me taste just that bit better, I can't quite put my finger on it but there's just that bit of extra quality going on. Or is it just the packet is easier to open with Asda's biccies? I really could devour the living daylights out of a packet of those right now...
I do like the packing shelf thing in Aldi though. When I go there I always only have enough to fill a basket so I chuck it all in there as it gets scanned then pack it into the backpack at my leisure. Much more sensible way of doing things, as I like to just go in, get my stuff and get out again. If my Aldi did self-scan I would actually use it more often. There are times when I fancy one of their double pepperoni and chorizo stuffed crust pizzas in their frozen range, super ideal for those evenings when you really want something quick and easy to eat but really filling and enjoyable. However if that's all I'm going in there for, then I don't want to wait behind people with a trolley overloaded with stuff, and of course that sort of shopper usually takes ages to move! Self-scan checkouts are extremely useful in my eyes, I inevitably make a beeline for them unless I have age-restricted items in Tesco. Which is usually more efficient to queue at a normal till for those.
I saw a lot of discussion about Morrisons in places on this thread, while they've got better they're still my least favourite supermarket of the lot.
My point is that I'd be absolutely tamping to live in a world of just Aldi or Lidl. I mean you might as well rid the world of all takeaways apart from Dominos and Pizza Hut while you're at it...
