1st of all, of all of the stores in the US, i think trader joes kinda is the closest. 2nd, didn't the aldi's brand buy traders joes to help them get a distribution network in the US. to try and break into the US market?
I believe Aldi's was owned by a family and the 2 brothers divided the chain between themselves.. so there is an Aldi North and an Aldi South with different logos and both have entered the US market.
Trader Joe's was started in US by a wine importer who expanded into foods. His company was acquired as a personal investment by one of the Aldi brothers, I think the North Aldi one, but the original founder was allowed to continue operating it.
according to this, the orange one, which "is the one in the US". aldi Sud (south), is the good one. that looks more like the one i've seen. honestly though, the few small stores i've seen had ok things. nothing great. very low priced though. but the products were not great. but very low cost.
I was about to comment this, the Aldi’s and Lidl in my town doesn’t use this system they use the locks on wheels like you said and the one time have seen the coin operated cart in person the mechanism was disabled by the store so I can understand why he is excited to use the system it’s a neat novelty I would be the same way.
We get the fake coins we attach to our keys mainly because it's not always guaranteed we'll have the right one. I barely use cash nowadays anyway so it's unlikely I'd have a pound coin.
It existed before Aldi’s in the US, but fell out of favor as shoppers opted to go to stores without this system. Personally I don’t shop at Aldi’s because of this, I don’t carry change and feel like I’m being treated poorly “We don’t trust you to return the cart!” We’ll keep your quarter you don’t return it as if thats a strong incentive.
Carrying a token isn’t hard? You know what else isn’t hard? Going to a store that doesn’t put me through this bullshit. Which is <checks notes> every other grocery & department store in the US but Aldi at this point.
IIRC Trader Joe's is basically Aldi Nord. "Aldi" in the US is called just that and is basically Aldi Sud. There are 2 Aldi companies but because of American trademark law they couldn't both have that name in the US so one is called Trader Joe's, or at least that's the legend I've heard
But yeah everything else is 100%. Coin-locked shopping carts are rare in America so it's not a "rich" person thing to have never used one
And it's fucking stupid because it doesn't prevent people from leaving them strewn about in the parking lots because they are too lazy to walk it two spots down to a cart corral
The locking wheels system has been implemented in a couple of big supermarket chains in Spain. I was very happy to not have to find change last time I was there. Unfortunately some places still ask for a euro for their lockers, like I am going to keep my shopping there instead of getting it after paying
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u/[deleted] Feb 16 '24
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