ALDI Customer Experience Research
Independent student research project; not affiliated with or endorsed by ALDI. All participant data has been anonymized.
Summary
7
Weeks of research
6
Research phases
4
Participants
For my Design Research: Discovery course (MPS in UX Design), I ran a study of the ALDI in-store shopping experience. As the sole researcher, I took the study through secondary research, in-depth interviews (IDIs), and cooperative shadow sessions at four different ALDI stores, and synthesis through affinity diagramming, coding, persona creation, journey mapping, and task analysis. My participants were all primary grocery shoppers for their households, fell into two very different personas, and yet all hit the same three pain points.
The study produced 2 personas, 2 journey maps with matching in-store example customer journey visualizations, and 3 research-backed opportunity areas: the aisles, the item selection, and the checkout. The simplest finding was also the one that stuck with me: none of the four ALDI stores I visited had self-checkout, and every participant hit the same friction at the end of an otherwise efficient trip.
Research Report
The Problem
ALDI's efficiency model is well earned, but reputation and in-store experience aren't the same. This study focused on the first half of the Double Diamond research framework and identifying shopper pain points-without jumping to solutions.
Research Questions
- What are individuals' buying habits and common activities?
- How are people acquiring groceries (in-store, curbside pickup, delivery)?
- How are people moving through the physical store?
How the Study Ran
The research took approximately 7 weeks across 6 phases. Every participant was the primary grocery shopper for their household and had shopped at ALDI within the last three months, so nobody was walking into an unfamiliar store. One caveat I will be upfront about: the panel was recruited from family and friends. For a course timeline that was the practical route, but familiarity introduces bias I can’t fully control for, and I won’t ever recruit that close to home again if I can avoid it. Reducing every bias I possibly can matters more than the convenience.
Secondary research came first, looking at the shopping experiences ALDI currently offers. From there, I ran structured IDIs with all four participants, then cooperative shadow sessions at each participant’s local ALDI, four different stores in total. Watching a participant shop their own store is a very different data source than hearing them describe it in an interview, and most of the findings below came out of having both.
Synthesis was the longest stretch of the project: affinity diagramming and thematic analysis on the raw session notes, then coding, persona creation, journey mapping, and task analysis. I made a point of sitting with the raw data before forming any conclusions, and that patience ended up being one of the better decisions of the study.
Research Phases
- Secondary Research
- IDIs
- Shadow Sessions
- Synthesis
- Personas
- Journey Maps
- Deliverables
What the Research Showed
Coding the four participants produced two clear personas. Cassandra, The Browser (18–29, Hamilton OH), enjoys grocery shopping and takes her time, browsing for deals and her favorite seasonal items, but she is easily overwhelmed by crowded aisles and interruptions from other shoppers or restocking employees. Helen, The Efficient Shopper (56+, Columbus OH), dislikes grocery shopping, prefers curbside pickup at another store entirely, and only walks into ALDI for a quick trip or to browse the Finds aisle. One of them loves the store, and one tolerates it, which is what made the actual finding land: both personas hit the same three walls, in the same places, on all shadow sessions.
The Elephant in the Aisle
ALDI’s efficiency breaks down inside the aisles themselves, hindered by other customers and by employees restocking shelves or collecting empty item boxes in space that is already limited.
Helen, who wants out of the store as quickly as possible, still browses, and Cassandra, who came specifically to browse; both personas end up avoiding aisles when they crowd up.
One participant even described the aisles this way immediately after telling me that ALDI “runs like a well-oiled machine.”
Press Play to see an example customer journey
Icons: cart by Adrien Coquet, Cashier by Pictogramma, crowd by diyah farida — Noun Project (CC BY 3.0)
The Discovery
How can ALDI make their aisles more comfortable for customers and employees?
I Hope They Have It
Both personas struggled to find items, whether ALDI carried them or not. Cassandra has favorite items that ALDI only stocks seasonally or for a limited time, and Helen wants her essentials without searching through boxes for them.
They’re very select in what they carry, and they also vary their inventory a lot... if you find something that you really like, you can’t be guaranteed when you go back, [they’ll] still be carrying it.
— Cathy Thompson, participant
The Discovery
How can ALDI make their customers more aware of the available items and their locations in the store?
Four ALDIs. One Problem.
None of the stores visited had self-checkout, not even the newer ones, and every participant faced similar friction at the end of their trip: from waiting on the next available cashier to getting crowded while paying. The through-line across every finding is that ALDI’s efficiency is real, but it’s operational efficiency. In the aisles, the selection, and the checkout, it’s the customers who end up picking up the slack.
Q: Do you feel like if your local ALDI had self-checkout you would go there more?
A: I think so, maybe.
— Linda Nicholson, participant
The Discovery
How can ALDI offer a more streamlined checkout experience?
What's Next
Some parts of the process I would keep exactly as they were. Synthesizing the interviews into personas came naturally and felt like one of the stronger parts of the study, and sitting with the raw data before forming conclusions paid off in how cleanly the themes emerged. Other parts I would change: recruiting outside my own circle, more secondary research between phases, a tighter scope after the interviews and shadow sessions to make coding easier, and a closer look at ALDI’s digital channels and services, since none of my participants used them enough for me to learn from in this round. In the future I would also want a minimum of 8 participants, since four was enough to surface the patterns but not enough to lean on them. The digital side is probably the first thing I would chase in a follow-up study, because the acquisition question (in-store, curbside pickup, delivery) still has a lot left in it.
Overall, this was the project where I got to run a full Discover phase end to end, and I’m more confident heading into Define-phase work because of it.