Aldi just opened its first two brick & mortar stores in China, both located in Shanghai. Aldi has been active on Alibabas online storesin China since 2017 - with the help of service provider Web2Asia’s George Godula (you will read more about him in Part 2 of our ChinaBriefs on Tour).

Aldi’s cross-border ecommerce business mostly leveraged not German but Australia sourced goods and bonded warehouse deliveries. One remarkable but often seen trick used by foreign brands entering China: a markedly higher brand positioning as compared to their home market - giving Aldi a bit of a luxury touch! But the higher prices are obviously justified by a much higher cost structure due to import duty and shipping costs, not to mention Shanghai’s sky-high real estate prices.

Btw, the Aldi Stores in China come with some technical wizardry their western counterparts are still missing, like…

• full omnichannel integration with Wechat Mini-Program and order delivery,

• cashier-less check-out with customers scanning all purchases with their phones,

• QR code enabled product labels for detailed information.

Check out this litte walkthrough video from our friends over at Dongxii: