District Manager of Remodels, Michael Fanning: "Aldi works for everybody, everybody likes to save money, our core customer is a person who likes to get a great deal and loves value."
Springfield — “Simply Smarter Shopping,” written in big white letters next to Aldi’s logo, is
what you notice when you enter the newly renovated Aldi store in Springfield. The grand opening was on Friday, Nov. 17.
“Every store will be updated to look similar to this one in Springfield,” said Jake Dipiazza, the director of real estate at Aldi.
Aldi is renovating their stores across the entire country, not to attract new customers as much as “to make sure our core base is happy” stressed Michael Fanning, project district manager of remodels at Aldi.
“We added about 4,000 square feet, brand new lighting, new graphics, new paint; we expanded our refrigerated section, almost doubled; the new layout of the store makes it easier for customers to shop. Also, we’ve added more than 150 new products to the store since we were closed last time. Our biggest expansion has been in the refrigerated and the fresh items, so we have a lot more fresh meat products, organic items; we’ve expanded our prepared food products, so there are more convenient items for people to pop in if they want to grab a sandwich, a soda or water; we didn’t have this stuff before,” said Dipiazza.
Fanning added a reason why Aldi is able to offer lower prices: “By having everything in our own exclusive brand. You walk around, you will not see a lot of national brands, you will not see Heinz, you will not see Hellmann’s but you will see our brand Burman’s. All of our food is made by the same national food producers and we ask them to have the highest quality standards. We don’t pay for the brand name, we save a lot of money by not doing that. We have a lot of efficiencies in our operation that other businesses do not have. That allows us to keep our prices low. When you come to Aldi and you are looking for say some …let’s see…canned corn. You have only one canned corn at Aldi. When you go to Walmart or Wegmans and you have 10 varieties of canned corn, you have to make a decision. Customers do not need to come and spend a lot of time; that helped us cut the cost down a little bit.”
Even though discount stores have been stigmatized in the past, Fanning sees that there is a big change happening right now. “The discounted model is becoming a lot larger than it used to be,” he said. “I think more and more, you are seeing customers who are okay [without the brand names], and are happy to see that they can save, and are willing to try our brands because they are learning that they are good brands. They try it once and they are more willing to try other things.”
Word of mouth is still one of the biggest ways that people find out about Aldi, according to Dipiazza, who confirmed that Aldi will finish renovating all the stores in D.C., Maryland, and Northern Virginia by the end of next year.