Aldi U.S. wants to take its online presence to the next level.
The parent company of the discount retailer, which is based in Germany, announced on Tuesday that it is collaborating with e-commerce expert Spryker Systems to create a new online grocery and food shopping experience for the American market, which will include grocery delivery and/or curbside pickup.
Aldi claims that the brand-new digital commerce platform is currently being evaluated by a select group of American consumers and will be introduced to the entire country in phases. Scott Patton, vice president of national buying for Aldi, said in a statement that “our partnership with Spryker will allow our customers another opportunity to access the incredible value they expect from Aldi.”
When Patton gave a tour of an Aldi store in Brooklyn New York late last month, he revealed that Aldi. was working on a project to change its information-only U.S. website into a transactional e-commerce website.”The website is coming. We’re going to have it here as quickly as we can, Patton added. And it will have a shoppable website with prices, goods, and everything else that customers want.”
Aldi has so far partnered with Instacart to develop its omnichannel presence. By the end of the year, the company hopes to increase the number of locations participating in its Curbside Grocery Pickup service, powered by Instacart, from over 1,200 to 1,500. Following a prior service pilot, Aldi had previously announced a 600-store rollout of curbside pickup in May 2020. Last year, they added an additional 500+ curbside locations.
As part of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Aldi has also teamed with San Francisco-based Instacart to offer electronic benefit transfer payments for online grocery pickup and delivery orders. In November 2020, Aldi and Instacart began integrating SNAP EBT in more than 60 stores in Georgia. In December of that same year, the rollout was expanded to more than 570 locations in Illinois, California, Florida, Pennsylvania, and Texas. They announced an expanded deployment to 1,000 additional stores later that month. More than 1,500 Aldi outlets now provide the SNAP EBT program.
In August 2017, Aldi announced a partnership with Instacart for online grocery delivery. In the fall of 2018, the chain began offering same-day delivery. Nearly all of Aldi’s stores now provide delivery. In November 2019, the retailer added alcohol delivery through Instacart.