Last week, the German-owned supermarket chain took another step into the Australian mainstream, trialling a grocery delivery service with DoorDash in Canberra ahead of a potential expansion around the country.
Aldi has long resisted offering deliveries, given the service would make a basket of groceries more expensive, undercutting its price advantage over Coles and Woolworths.
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Aldi tried a similar service with a third-party delivery provider in the UK, but it didn’t last. The chain is also hesitant to build its own delivery system because that would add significant costs to the business, which would either result in higher grocery prices or less profits for its German owners.
Prof Gary Mortimer, a retail expert at the Queensland University of Technology, says Aldi has had to respond to the delivery trend.
“Online food and groceries now represent anywhere between 10 to 12% of supermarket revenue,” Mortimer says.
“As Aldi enters into that space, even using a third-party provider like DoorDash, Coles and Woolworths will be looking at how they go about defending that market share.”
Retail expert Bronwyn Thompson says Aldi considers the competitive advantage of a delivery service to be worth the additional expense.
“If they’re trying to be more of a ‘whole shop’ destination, this is part of that,” Thompson says.