Aldi Case Study

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is the tipping point of Australian grocery industry, over one-fourth Australian grocery buyers have tried online grocery shopping and another one-fourth want to try it in near future due to benefits such as time and effort saving (Mi9/Hoop Grocery Buyers Research, 2014).

Aldi should take advantage of the online shopping trend and offer e-commerce service in both PC website and mobile App. Thus the growing number of time/effort conscious customers are able to order items during fragmented time like taking metro or waiting for bus.

In term of taking delivery of goods, home delivery is obvious a necessary method but also has limitations. Even though high performance logistics is able to deliver in 2 hours

duration, customers still have to be at home to receive the delivery. Thus Aldi should think

differently about the box. Opening drive-thru pickup is an innovative alternative (usually in suburb). Customer places order online, and then receives messages that it’s ready for pickup, along with a code. Then costumer punches in the code when approaching pickup point, being informed which parking space to park and an employee comes to car with groceries. All the processes can be done in two or three minutes including payment process,which even further saves consumers’ time (McKinsey&Company, 2015).

Figure 1. Drive-thru pickup point

Moreover, smart phone is not only a shopping channel, but also an important tool to blend digital and physical experiences together. As mentioned above, Aldi’s mobile App has no synergy with in-store shopping experience, which may annoy consumers. To avoid unsatisfying consumers, it is inventible for Aldi to improve their App. First and foremost, category filter, search function and usable shopping list should be added in future update to facilitate consumers’ online shopping experience. In addition, QR code should be displayed in product label, so that users are able to scan the QR code and directly read the product review from others. Further, in door positioning system (IPS) would be a plus, which clearly informs location of product that consumer has purchase intention in App (Prasithsangaree, Krishnamurthy & Chrysanthis, 2011).

All in all, synergy between online shopping service, drive-thru pickup point and redefined mobile App is able to mash digital and physical shopping experience together to produce a seamless, convenient and engaging experience for customer.