UK: British Aldi will go online in 2016 | Progresiv
In the United Kingdom, German discounter Aldi will launch an online shop next year. That became apparent when it published its 2014 yearly results, which showed that Aldi UK's turnover grew a lot, but its operational profit dropped about 4 %. 
Similarly to all other companies in Great Britain, Aldi UK is obliged to hand in financial results at the Companies House, the British Chamber of Commerce. When the 2014 numbers were revealed, Matthew Barnes (Aldi's chairman of the board in Great Britain and Ireland) confirmed in the press that the discounter would launch its online operation next year.
At first, it will sell boxed wine, adding non-food items to its online product range in the spring of 2016. Aldi Australia, also part of Aldi Süd, already performed this move, as it already sells wine and non-food articles online. They are called Special Buys over there and that will also be the name in the United Kingdom.
The online orders can be delivered home or customers can pick them up at external pick-up points, but it seems unlikely Aldi will use its own stores as a possible pick-up location. If it did decide to do so, it would have to change its stores to handle the delivery of online orders, which would increase the complexity of the entire operation and is opposed to Aldi's business model. The company tries to do everything at the lowest possible operational cost.
Aldi's brick-and-mortar stores already faced lower profits and higher costs in 2014, as it had to lower prices and hire more staff to improve its customer service. All this lowered Aldi UK's operational profit by 4 % to 260 million pounds (more than 350 million euro).
Aldi UK's turnover still increased 31 % to 6.9 billion pounds (9.3 billion euros), thanks to the large number of new stores it opened. Aldi Süd's British subsidiary now has 598 discount stores, although it will keep adding stores, even this year. The company has stated it is on course to open its targeted 65 new stores by the end of the year. (www.retaildetail.eu)
