One thing that I found very interesting: upto maybe 6-7 years ago in the Aldi shops there were no barcode readers at the cashier. Instead, the cashiers knew the price of _all_ products by heart and they had an incredible speed in typing at the numpads. I was truly amazed, it was hard to keep up puting the goods back into the shopping cart. There were literally no queues forming, since they took only cash.
Now the shops are a little more modern, accept cards and the cashiers are rather mindless drones instead of numbers prodigies from before.
In Austria they're still quick. I remember seeing the old cahsier as a child - but it is still my favourite shop in terms of effectiveness.
Now they've started something like a bakery in stores with many people just buying one or two items, which slows down the process.
The process in the shops is optimized for people to buy in bulk.
'Never underestimate the person behind the register.' was one of the lessons we took away from a Point-Of-Sale system installation in a fast food restaurant. When the first customers came through the drive-through, we were surprised that the teenagers taking the orders had calculated the tax and order total, to the penny, in their heads. By the end of the day, we'd developed our rule, confirmed by further experience in other stores and other states.
When they finally did get barcodes they wrapped around most of the product so they could just whizz them past the scanners. They're still fast, but it's a more frustrating to keep up, whereas before, you were kind of in awe.
I wonder if they have any data on what the accuracy/mistake rate was of the average Aldi cashier doing it by memory as compared to with barcodes. Be interesting to know
But, to contribute positively, what brands managed to build was trust in their name - you go to the supermarket and faced with 40,000 products, (10 new grocery items are introduced every day) buying a brand name means less gambling on whatever processed food you're faced with.
Aldi reduced the choice between the same item from brands and just had the choice between foodstuffs.
They also sell brand items and no name items of a product made by the same producer. So, people who are brand conscious buy from the same supplier like the people who buy the no name of a product. Very subtle.
I think it's interesting to note that Trader Joe's "has been owned since 1979 by a German family trust established by Aldi Nord's owner Theo Albrecht." [1]
There's an Aldi near where I live so I thought I'd check it out. I've lived in Europe and spent extended periods in Asia so I've seen all kinds of shopping experiences.
For a place with an reputation for being innovative, Aldi seemed very downscale and out of step with tastes, even compared to the neighboring Wal Mart, never mind a Carrefour or a Japanese supermarket. Heavy on canned food. It seemed like something out of East Germany before the Wall came down. I'm surprised they thrive anywhere.
Did I have an uncharacteristic experience? What's good about an Aldi shop? It's weird that the same outfit operates Trader Joes.
Spelling a German umlaut with the letter e is etymologically correct, and it is a convention well known to Germans and to German-speakers in the non-German-speaking world. Most of the news reporting about the German national team to the World Cup reported the names of the players with that kind of alternative spelling, for example "Götze" as "Goetze" and "Özil" as "Oezil."
I don't understand these old bilionaires. It seems there's so much work to be done, and possibly a great deal of low-hanging fruit, in anti-aging research. Who's to say what Aubrey de Grey et al would have been able to deliver by now if given a few billion ten years ago?
You can't take it with you. Give it to science, FFS.
From the text of the article kindly submitted here: "Karl Albrecht established the Elisen Foundation to support cultural causes, and his Oertel trust, which controlled a portion of Aldi Sued, also donates to medical research."
Any working scientist who is actively involved in anti-aging research can tell you that Aubrey de Grey is not going to deliver with his approach. The current Wikipedia article on de Grey is largely written by de Grey and his close friends, and the article there about his approach to anti-aging research is written mostly by fans of his research. Wikipedia is currently a biased source. But I have been going to the complete journal subscriptions of a large research university with a medical school, with updating Wikipedia in mind. The general approach advocated by de Grey (and pursued by other researchers) is interesting, and was worth looking at when it was first mentioned, but it is not panning out as a general approach to reduce risk of aging-related health problems. I think the billionaire mentioned in the article kindly submitted here, who lived into his nineties, knew more on a practical level about how not to age too soon than de Grey does. (Aubrey de Grey has no medical training, after all.)
Karl Albrecht established the Elisen Foundation to support cultural causes, and his Oertel trust, which controlled a portion of Aldi Sued, also donates to medical research.
It's quite possible that he did exactly what you suggest.
Sure, blame the victim. How is old age not literally every single person's problem who hasn't committed to suicide by a certain age?
It would be completely justified to spend 1% of world GDP on aging research - that is something like $700 billion per year, $7 trillion by 2025.
It's free money, too, as if you increase life expency from 70 to 90 I'm sure the people choosing to keep working from 65 or 70 up from 56 or 60 would more than account for a 1% increase in GDP. It's just free cash for the economy.
It may be that people are so accustomed to ageing and death, that even smart ones, especially if they were raised in the Western / Christian belief system, tend to accept death on such a fundamental level, that the idea of battling death simply doesn't compute for them. Or, is discarded as science fiction comic book hokum.
Pretty sure there's better causes to donate to than anti-aging if you're a billionaire. Funding disease research and whatnot will also increase the average lifespan, for example. Plus 94 is a very respectable age, I for one don't think I'd want to live for that long.
[+] [-] ccozan|11 years ago|reply
Now the shops are a little more modern, accept cards and the cashiers are rather mindless drones instead of numbers prodigies from before.
[+] [-] brusch64|11 years ago|reply
Now they've started something like a bakery in stores with many people just buying one or two items, which slows down the process. The process in the shops is optimized for people to buy in bulk.
[+] [-] pjmorris|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mazuhl|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mtmail|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] valarauca1|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] doorhammer|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SixSigma|11 years ago|reply
But, to contribute positively, what brands managed to build was trust in their name - you go to the supermarket and faced with 40,000 products, (10 new grocery items are introduced every day) buying a brand name means less gambling on whatever processed food you're faced with.
Aldi reduced the choice between the same item from brands and just had the choice between foodstuffs.
[+] [-] valevk|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 127001brewer|11 years ago|reply
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trader_Joe's
[+] [-] Zigurd|11 years ago|reply
For a place with an reputation for being innovative, Aldi seemed very downscale and out of step with tastes, even compared to the neighboring Wal Mart, never mind a Carrefour or a Japanese supermarket. Heavy on canned food. It seemed like something out of East Germany before the Wall came down. I'm surprised they thrive anywhere.
Did I have an uncharacteristic experience? What's good about an Aldi shop? It's weird that the same outfit operates Trader Joes.
[+] [-] junto|11 years ago|reply
- Aldi Sued => Aldi Süd (i.e. south)
[+] [-] tokenadult|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] asuidyasiud|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] valevk|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] venus|11 years ago|reply
You can't take it with you. Give it to science, FFS.
[+] [-] tokenadult|11 years ago|reply
Any working scientist who is actively involved in anti-aging research can tell you that Aubrey de Grey is not going to deliver with his approach. The current Wikipedia article on de Grey is largely written by de Grey and his close friends, and the article there about his approach to anti-aging research is written mostly by fans of his research. Wikipedia is currently a biased source. But I have been going to the complete journal subscriptions of a large research university with a medical school, with updating Wikipedia in mind. The general approach advocated by de Grey (and pursued by other researchers) is interesting, and was worth looking at when it was first mentioned, but it is not panning out as a general approach to reduce risk of aging-related health problems. I think the billionaire mentioned in the article kindly submitted here, who lived into his nineties, knew more on a practical level about how not to age too soon than de Grey does. (Aubrey de Grey has no medical training, after all.)
[+] [-] onion2k|11 years ago|reply
Karl Albrecht established the Elisen Foundation to support cultural causes, and his Oertel trust, which controlled a portion of Aldi Sued, also donates to medical research.
It's quite possible that he did exactly what you suggest.
[+] [-] logicallee|11 years ago|reply
It would be completely justified to spend 1% of world GDP on aging research - that is something like $700 billion per year, $7 trillion by 2025.
It's free money, too, as if you increase life expency from 70 to 90 I'm sure the people choosing to keep working from 65 or 70 up from 56 or 60 would more than account for a 1% increase in GDP. It's just free cash for the economy.
[+] [-] terhechte|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Cthulhu_|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] orcdork|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|11 years ago|reply
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