German discount grocery chain Lidl, with nearly 12,000 stores worldwide, is rapidly expanding in the United States. It opened its first store in the US five years ago and now has more than 150 stores. It came to the UK in 1994 with more than 920 stores.
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source: Lide GBinsider, Lide GB, Liddell USA
Lidl’s US operations are much newer than its UK operations – but what it may lack in the US grocery market it makes up for with its decades of experience operating overseas. Insider visited a Lidl store in London and a store in Harlem — the first Lidl in Manhattan — to see how they stack up.
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resource: Liddell
The Lidl we visited in the UK is an independent shop with its own car park in a residential area on the outskirts of London. Lidl stores typically have a much smaller footprint than other grocery stores.
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The Lidl we visited in Harlem was a completely different store format. It’s in a busy downtown area, nestled between a Starbucks and a Chase branch, and doesn’t have its own parking lot. But from the road, it looks very attractive and offers some nice pavement greenery.
The exterior of a Lidl store in Harlem
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To enter the London store, you have to go through two doors. It’s a bit like airport security. There are also separate doors for entry and exit, which is not common in the UK.
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In the Harlem store, you have to go through the automatic door, then the door that opens automatically. Like many grocery stores in NYC, you don’t get out the way you came in.
The entrance to Harlem Lidl.
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The London store looks relatively spacious, with wide aisles and shelves at reasonable heights that won’t rise above you.
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Some products are in odd places, like this Nutella tray next to the hygiene products.
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There’s also a pile of fresh produce in the middle of the aisle, though there’s plenty of room to walk around it.
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There are some gaps, but overall, the shelves seem to be fairly well stocked.
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Instead of unpacking products in rows on shelves, Lidl displays them in the crates and boxes they are delivered in, which means there are empty crates scattered around.
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Trays form the overall structure of some product aisles.
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Lidl also sells directly from delivery boxes in its US stores.
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The shelves at Lidl in Harlem are well stocked and the store looks neat.
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It’s unclear why these items were chosen for the discount, as they’re not seasonal or expiring soon.
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Lidl Harlem is also plentiful with low-priced toiletries, making it tough competition from Duane Reade and CVS. Some consumers are hesitant to buy toiletries at the grocery store because they find them more expensive than the drugstore — but Lidl’s toothpaste is actually $2 cheaper than what we saw on Rite Aid earlier this week.
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It also has an area with all kinds of interesting discounted items. We found everything from raisins to fudge sushi.
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Although Lidl sells some big names, it mainly sells private label products. As at Aldi, some of its products appear to be closely related to popular brands, and in many cases are displayed next to them, but at much lower prices. Chocolate biscuits made by Tunnock, for example, cost £1.39 ($1.64), second only to Lidl’s own brand at £0.95 ($1.12).
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By contrast, baked goods are in prime locations in front of Harlem, and the smell wafts down the street. Although the display is much smaller than in the UK, the baked goods are always in abundance and there is sometimes a rotation of new ones. At one point, they had a buy-one-get-one deal on baguettes. The products are not as cheap as the UK – when Insider visited, the cheapest rolls were $0.59.
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They include garden furniture, electronics, cooking equipment, pet products and children’s toys. I found recipe books, massage guns, leaf blowers for £60 ($71), kayaks for £50 ($59) and outdoor cutlery for £130 ($153).
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