What's Up With Aldi's In-Store Use Of Shipping Boxes?

If you've just started shopping at Aldi for the first time, you've likely discovered some peculiar and unfamiliar aspects of shopping there that set the supermarket chain apart from competitors. First, the simple process of grabbing a shopping cart requires a quarter to unlock one. Weird, right? Then, random shoppers sometimes call out "caw, caw" with no explanation. Clearly, this isn't a normal grocery store.

The little quirks that make Aldi different tend to exist for the same reason: saving money. Investigations routinely show that Aldi is the cheapest retailer for many items, even compared to other discount grocers like Walmart. Shoppers have gotten the memo that the store is the fastest-growing grocer in the United States. Aldi keeps prices down with several unique business decisions, like not stocking many brand name items, eschewing TV ads, and limiting shopping hours. Another cost-saver is stocking products in the shipping boxes they arrived in. While it may surprise you to see groceries displayed on shelves in nondescript boxes, it's a decision that saves money, which Aldi passes along to you in savings.

Aldi isn't shy about its cost-saving measures, explaining right on its website that the prerogative to stock items in the boxes they were shipped in is to keep prices low. After all, it costs a lot less in labor to have a stock employee place a shipping box on the shelf than to tediously unpack the contents and make them look pretty. Also, leaving the products in boxes means that the boxes themselves can be used as dividers and shelves, saving money on fixtures.

This decision has an unexpected bonus: Customers can use the empty boxes to bring their groceries home. Aldi notoriously makes customers pay for bags, even in U.S. states that don't normally charge for plastic or paper bags. When you've forgotten your reusable bags, an empty shipping box makes a great way to help keep your peanut butter and house-brand crackers from rolling around the trunk of your car. Many customers take advantage of this hack, so Aldi doesn't even have to worry about breaking down or recycling the boxes — another money-saver.