Aldi - Less Choice is Sometimes More

As the discussants at the fellow Canberra blog Crazybrave point out, there is less choice at Aldi. We, the Always Hungrys, believe that this is its charm.

Aldi, in contrast to other supermarkets, is premised on the idea that at least some consumers actually want less - what we contend are more or less pointless - choices for certain products. These consumers, in our understanding, want a certain level of comparative quality in combination with low prices. This, of course, contrasts with a certain unqualified rhetoric often found in advertising asserting that consumers want more choices.

This call-for-choice is usually predicated on two grounds: that competition engenders quality, or that choice allows the consumer to express their own unique-as-a-snowflake identity. Although consumption may indeed be a manifestation of one's social identity as sophisticated, Australian, or young-at-heart or whatever, the idea that more or less mass-marketed goods make an individual can scarcely be considered as much more than, at best, problematic. We find it hard to see how being able to choose between 20 types of widely-available, say, toothpaste or bottled water produces individuality. Rather, Aldi's less choice of essentially generic products of a comparable quality to its competitors at usually much lower prices provides greater value, and leaves identity to more substantive aspects of life.

We grant that Aldi is not perfect - for example, we are skeptical of the value of its bulk packaging to facilitate faster scanning against environmental impacts. We are glad that we have choices elsewhere in purchasing certain food and drink products. However, within many aspects of cooking and eating, we like it that Aldi is orientated to an alternative model of the consumer and provides an alternative to choices not worth making.