Happy birthday, Aldi! How the hard discounter conquered Switzerland

Reto Fehr

Philip Rijk

Finally old! The German discounter Aldi opened its first branches in Switzerland 18 years ago today. The first sales points opened in 2005 in Weinfelden TG, Amriswil TG, Altenrhein SG and Gibstorf AG. The preparation took 16 months. Then Switzerland also learned about new prizes. The hard discounter calculated this to the nearest centime and the purchase amount was then rounded down to the next 5 or 10 centimes. The choice of location was also new: Aldi branches were often built on the outskirts.

The market introduction was not eagerly awaited everywhere. The UNIA criticized that Aldi systematically pushes part-time work and thus avoids employer contributions to the pension fund, pays less for daily health insurance and that, in addition to the ban on visible tattoos and piercings, employees also have to clean the store in the evening.

And furthermore: the Aldi wage of 3,696 francs for a full-time job is a shabby deception: employees have to work 42 hours a week – one more than at Migros and Coop.

Aldi was not as cheap as expected. The “K-Tipp” noted in March 2006: “Many people were hoping for lower prices from Aldi Switzerland. However, the German discounter is not much cheaper.”

But the then invader from Germany settled here and the sales network has grown steadily in recent years. Offers for travel (2006), mobile telephony, photos (both 2007), online stores with non-food products (2018) and an online delivery service (2021) were also added.

Today you can say: Aldi has officially come of age in Switzerland. Aldi recently gave itself a somewhat early birthday present: yesterday the 239th branch in Switzerland opened in Wallisellen.

In 2005, after the four branches in October, three more were opened by the end of the year. At that time the company had 300 employees in Switzerland. 18 years later there are 3,900.

And this is how Aldi conquered Switzerland:

In the early years, Aldi aggressively entered the Swiss market with numerous stores. In 2006, 18 locations were added, in 2007 28 and in 2008 36, more than ever before. Since 2012, approximately five to ten new points of sale have opened their doors every year.

The 100th branch opened in 2009 and the 200th in 2019. In 2015, Aldi Suisse’s then country manager, Timo Schuster, set a long-term target of 300 branches. In the Handelszeitung he did not specify the period in which this should be achieved. When asked, the media agency Aldi Suisse writes that it still adheres to its medium-term target of 300 branches.

In Switzerland, Aldi, with 239 branches, is still ahead of Lidl, which entered the Swiss market a little later (opened its 174th branch on October 26), but still just behind the Dutch supermarket chain Spar.

The gap with Denner, Volg, Migros and Coop (each only supermarkets) remains large, but such a large office network is – as mentioned above – not the goal in the medium term.