Posted on 04/29/2025 7:41:31 AM PDT by Red Badger
If you've ever stepped foot in an Aldi supermarket, it probably didn't take you very long to realize why it's recognized as one of the most affordable grocery chains both in the United States and overseas. From fancy cheese to bakery staples to a range of healthy snacks, the retailer's shelves are stocked with plenty of high-quality grocery items at impressively wallet-friendly prices.
To keep overheads (and therefore, prices) low, Aldi employs a number of unique strategies. For one thing, you'll never hear music playing in an Aldi store, as it saves money by avoiding licensing fees. It costs a quarter to rent a shopping cart, which shoppers get back once they return it — a method that reduces the need for employees to spend time rounding them up. You might also notice that, unlike at most other grocery chains, Aldi cashiers get to sit down while ringing up customers.
The reason for that is not simply a way to make workers happy by giving them a chance to rest. Additionally, allowing cashiers to have a seat while they work helps with the overall efficiency of the business. As one Aldi cashier told Mental Floss, the company's own testing shows that sitting down at the register allows cashiers to ring up items faster. This keeps lines moving and customers satisfied while also cutting labor costs in the long run. Checkout speed and efficiency are so important to the company, in fact, that workers are given reports documenting their ringing statistics at the end of every shift.
Aldi's philosophy? Efficiency is key
As a purported Aldi employee mentioned in one Reddit thread, cashiers can be expected to ring up to 1,200 items per hour. That, in addition to being required to make the rounds unboxing items, stocking shelves, and keeping aisles tidy, can make the job quite physically demanding and strenuous. (A worker shared with Mental Floss that she probably clocked more than 25,000 steps per shift.) So, when it comes to manning the registers, the fact that it could be done off one's feet is something to be taken advantage of.
Speaking as someone who once worked as a standing supermarket cashier at another grocery chain (with all the same additional responsibilities), I can definitely see why sitting down could help employees work faster. By the end of the day, being physically spent is always just going to make the employee — and lines — move slower.
Beyond having its cashiers take a seat, Aldi makes use of other quick and efficient checkout methods. Those include large barcodes on items to make them easier to scan and encouraging customers to pre-insert their credit cards so that they're ready to pay by the time items are completely rung up. Perhaps most notably, shoppers bag their own items. While Aldi employees will help load up your cart with your processed groceries, customers do their own bagging in a separate area to keep things moving along. And considering the savings they're getting by doing so, fans of the brand certainly aren't complaining.
When Volvo opened an office locally, they bragged about the amount of time they got in PTO. Then they started everyone with 10 days of PTO because they said it was the law.
As my very Jewish daughter in Texas calls it:
“Hebe”!
Yep, some occupations just really do need them. Leg fatigue is a real thing.
Not overly impressed with Aldi
The Aldis near me is a dump. I keep hearing about how great it is and I scratch my head. The local one smells, its shelves are a mess, and the produce looks like something you would find in a back water village in India.
I wonder how it stays in business.
We shopped the Aldi in my home town in England, it cost 1 GBP for the cart deposit. The one we go to here in AZ is like an icebox inside, which is nice in the summer. Not so much in the winter though
I lover the quarter-operated grocery carts! Last year some lazy bastige pushed their card over a little embankment at Walmart and I ended up hitting it and putting a scratch on my truck. People are cheap enough that they will return the cart at Aldis to get that quarter back!
I have heard, and would love to know if this is true, that Aldi sells products from Europe that don’t have all the crap that we put in our food that isn’t good, that RFKjr is railing against; and, they don’t want our food for that very reason...????
Yes, in Germany, they sit at every register I’ve ever been to.
Interesting. Thanks for posting. I have them nearby, but I’ve never been in one.
I think that’s the point; limited selection and few name brands.
The flip side is less time in the store, and significantly lower prices.
Any job that can be done sitting down, should be allowed.
Many people have this hangup that equates sitting down with not working. That’s really really old school sweatshop early 1900 train of thought.
Think about why should someone care so much if a person is sitting or standing if the labor being performed is unaffected?
This is in the realm of nosy people like neighbor Gladys spying on the Bewitched household. Just mind your own business about stuff like this I say.
If I am understanding your comment correctly, that would mean ALDI tested standing vs sitting, but opted for the lesser efficiency of sitting, regardless of standing being legal, in order to satisfy their European "core". That makes no sense. If standing was more efficient they would implement it.
I have reason to believe seated is a more efficient and better way to do that job for a variety of reasons. Aside from efficiency, reduction of fatigue is significant, just as stated in the article.
When I was in an Aldis in Germany the cashiers were seated.
I am not arguing anything. I am just saying that they are required by law to have chairs for cashiers in Europe, so they continue the practice here for consistency, but feel the need to spin it as efficiency. I don’t have an opinion one way or the other about the practice itself.
In Italy, a grocery store posted a sign saying there was a new law requiring customers to retain their receipt in and near the store.
It was an anti-shoplifting law.
That is true. Doritos for instance are in the process of purging synthetic dyes in their chips while the Aldi version has been synthetic free since I first bought them. Not that it makes them health food just not as bad.
Have to be careful, and pay attention, though. I noticed, the prices on many things are lower, but, the size of many of the items and amount in the package, are, usually smaller. So, you think you are getting a deal, but, in reality, you are paying less and at the same time, getting less.
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