A couple days before Thanksgiving, a posting went up on careerbuilder.com advertising for a Store Manager – Retail/Restaurant/Grocery. No word yet on the exact location for the planned store, but the pay looks good at $22 per hour for a 40 hour week. Upon promotion to the Store Manager position, ALDI’s is advertising income potential of up to $85K per year. Major medical and dental insurance, vacation time, paid holidays, and 401(k) options are also available apparently according to their ad. You can view the ad for yourself by clicking HERE. No firm information about the proposed location yet, but one of our readers has reported that it may be going near Menard’s.
I have to admit, I’ve never heard of ALDI, but they bill themselves as the nation’s low-price grocery leader. Their store model is built on creating efficiencies at every level – from store construction to distribution to the specific products they stock. They claim that their success is that they are as much a philosophy as they are a grocery store. They claim their operations are dedicated to quality of their products and savings for their customers. View the ALDI website HERE. After reading through the bulleted list below where they explain some of the secrets to their success, the concept sounds somewhat like a combination between Sam’s Club and a Dollar Store.
Apparently ALDI is the parent company of Trader Joe’s, so could this be a precursor to that chain coming the area as well. There is an ad posted for an ALDI store manager for Duluth as well, so we are likely to see at least one store in each city, although given what we saw with the virtual explosion of Kwik Trips to the Twin Ports this year, who knows where this will end. Currently, the closest ALDI store to Superior is in Rice Lake, Wisconsin.
What Makes ALDI Different From Other Stores?
The following bullet points were extracted from the ALDI website, and go a long way into explaining how this grocery chain has a different approach to how they run their business.
- The Carts: We keep our carts in one convenient place. You put a quarter in the cart, shop and then return the cart to get your quarter back. This helps to keep prices low because we don’t spend time retrieving carts.
- Checkout: Credit card processing fees are expensive. By only accepting cash, debit and EBT cards, it helps keep our prices low.
- Bags: Bring your own bags or buy our reusable ones at checkout.
- Saving Green: Everything we do from our smaller, energy-saving stores to recycled bags and cartons capture the very essence of conservation. As a result, you can save up to 50% on the majority of your needs.
- Our Brands: ALDI brands are made of the same, or even higher, quality than national brands. Plus, they’re backed by our Double Guarantee. So you can be sure you and your family will trust ALDI brands for delicious satisfaction.
- Select Assortment: While a typical supermarket carries about 30,000 items, we sell only about 1,400 of the fastest-moving grocery items – most of which are our high-quality brands. Smaller inventory means smaller stores, which leads to lower rent and electricity costs. This allows us to pass the savings on to you.
- Select Hours: A typical ALDI store stays open during the most popular shopping hours. Staying open later would simply add labor costs – and raise our prices.
Follow this LINK to see their Frequently Asked Questions page on their website. It’s pretty interesting!
Finally!!! Way overdue.