No-frills supermarket chain Aldi to accept credit cards

Associated Press ^ | Mar 1, 2016 5:02 PM EST | Anne D’Innocenzio

[Sirius Lee]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fufu

[manc]

Same here. I go and get as much as I can there and then have to go to Publix here to get deli meat and a few others things.

[manc]

My wife got that and she loved it.

[Original Lurker]

You know, that whole grain and seed type stuff made by the name brand national bakers.

[Moonman62]

I haven’t been going there much because having to use cash. But now I will be a regular. I bet this actually doubles their customer base.

....

Rats. Now the lines will be even longer. They do move fast, but my experience is credit cards frequently get declined so they’ll move slower now.

Aldi’s actually carries decent food. Some of it is similar to Trader Joe’s.

[Moose4]

As long as you’re not dedicated to name brands, and don’t mind a massively confusing store layout, Aldi is great. We do a lot of our shopping there, their prices are excellent and it’s surprising how good some of the things are we can find there time to time.

}:-)4

[Original Lurker]

I had another thought (while watching Sanford and Son).
Maybe Visa has declared war on AMEX.

Costco is kicking AMEX to the curb. Perhaps VISA offered Aldi a deal they couldn’t refuse.. JMHO..!
I have been recently bombarded with offers from AMEX though I haven’t had one of their cards in my name (corp, yes) for decades.. I will NOT pay for a charge card (last check my FICO score was 823).

[fso301]

It probably gets expensive having to restock a bunch of items because some customer with no cash, or debit card gave the cashier a credit card.

[tuffydoodle]

foo-foo bread? What is “foo-foo bread?”

It’s made from rabbits. You know, little rabbit foo foo?

[chopperman]

...I get a chuckle out of the quarter deposit for the shopping cart...

I wish Walmart had those kind of carts. It'll make those lazy slobs that shop there return the carts instead of causing us to have to drive around them in the parking lot.

[clearcarbon]

"As long as you’re not dedicated to name brands, and don’t mind a massively confusing store layout, Aldi is great. We do a lot of our shopping there, their prices are excellent and it’s surprising how good some of the things are we can find there time to time.

I have found that their product character can change. Sometimes it will change better, and sometimes worse. Instant coffee and peanut got much better while their miracle whip clone got much worse. I like their canned chicken soup better than Campbells, and it's about half the price. Current sale price forty nine cents.

[Fungi]

Meh.................Not funny..............

[tuffydoodle]

Did your guy lose last night?

[MD Expat in PA]

I hate that store. When are they going to accept checks? Everybody else does. And when are they going to allow you to use a cart without a fee, (Yes, I know that the fee is refundable at the end, but I think it is insulting.) Their prices are not that good. Costco, Sam's, Piggly Wiggly, and Sendik's (a local, high end chain) all provide motorized carts for the handicapped, take checks as well as all other forms of credit. Not sure about Meijer because they've only recently opened and I haven't explored them yet. I'll leave Aldi to the folks who like to be perpetually abused.

Checks? I hardly ever see someone writing checks at the grocery store or nearly anywhere else for that matter. I opened a new bank account when I moved to PA eight years ago and over those eight years I've written a total of five checks and one of those was to PennDot when I got my PA driver's license because they didn't take debit or credit cards at the PennDot centers (cash or check only) but they do accept debit and credit cards for renewing tags or driver's licenses on-line which I much prefer to do.

The last time I saw someone writing a check at the grocery store, a few months ago, it was a very elderly lady and it took her what seemed to be forever to write it out. Not that I complained or begrudge her for doing so but it stood out to me because it had been so long since I'd been in line behind someone writing a check.

FWIW I worked at a Weis Markets grocery store in Maryland back in the late '80's as an assistant manager, in the office we maintained a list of names of customers who had passed bad checks or had bounced checks or who had cashed bad PR checks (back when you could cash a PR check at the grocery store) that was updated weekly and posted at all the check outs. The list was very long and when I worked a check out or the register at the office, we had to cross check that list every time someone paid by check, even if they had a check cashing card. If a customer bounced a check, the first time, they had to pay the bounced check in addition to making good on the check in order to get their check privileges back. A good 8 out of 10, they didn't and for those who did, IIRC, there was a high percentage that went on to bounce subsequent checks.

When I first moved to PA I worked part time at a Target during the Christmas season and following year at a Toys R Us. The technology had improved somewhat as to check verification which also involved scanning the bar code on the back of most state's driver's licenses - no scan-able driver's license or with an out of state driver's license without a bar code, required a manger's approval, and rather than being given a list of "do not accept any checks from the following people"; the computerized system flagged the bad check passers instead.

And to further; out of HS in the late 70's and through the early 80's I worked for a Maryland based convenience store chain and this was before accepting debit or credit cards, and we only accepted cash - no checks! I've been to many small privately owned retailers who do not accept checks or do so on a case by case basis at their discretion for only known and repeat customers. And I can't write a check at the Rutter's or Sheetz stores around here either, not that I'd want to.

As for the .25 cart deposit, I don't find it insulting (BJ's Warehouse does the same thing) and I wish more retailers would do so.

Where I currently live there is a shopping center with a big chain grocery store backing up to the apartment complex and some of our more "stellar" residents think that the grocery store's grocery carts are to be used to transport their groceries from the store to their apartment but instead of returning them to the store, they park them in front of the dumpsters or on the sidewalk in front of their (or my) building. Every week the maintenance/janitorial crew has to gather up several abandoned grocery cards and return them to the store.

all provide motorized carts for the handicapped

I do know of some people who are legitimately handicapped or with heart or other heath conditions who benefit from those motorized carts. But more times than not what I see are grossly obese people using them; people that IMO, could greatly benefit from walking around once and a while. I've also been run into by more than a few of those motorized carts while shopping. Just saying.

As for prices, I think that Aldi's is very good on some items, but just OK on others (and much like BJ's). I shop at Aldi's occasionally for canned goods and other staple items - flour, sugar, spices, etc., and find the quality and price very good and better than most stores, even the Wal-Mart or Target in my area. As a single person however, a lot of their fresh produce and meats are sold in bulk packages and given my small fridge/freezer I have in my apartment and the lack of cabinet and storage space, it isn't worth it for me to buy in bulk and is the reason I didn't renew my BJ's membership after I moved into my apartment.

[Marko413]

Walmart is an abusive monopoly in our town that has pushed out many smaller chains already. Aldi still remains and they have stood as the only grocery store that when you do price-matching coupons at Walmart with Aldi coupons, Walmart loses money. Every other store coupon Walmart was still making a profit or breaking even. That’s what my friends say, I make a point to shop at Aldi and stick it to Walmart.

I am still convinced there is also something with tax on Aldi receipts that help make the final grocery bill cheaper. I’m not sure how they are not able to charge less tax than other stores, but I absolutely love that store. With all the economic crap we have had to deal with the last 8 years, Aldi has been one of the few things that helped make our lives livable.

[T-Bone Texan]

A deposit for carts?

That’s what stores do to foil ghetto behavior.

Thus it is insulting to me, a non ghetto person.

[afraidfortherepublic]

Exactly.