Lidl Working To Enhance Consumer Experience
The discount grocer segment continues to grow in the U.S. and the latest example of this expansion is the opening of a new Lidl store in New York City.
Taking a less aggressive approach to expansion than some of its competitors such as Aldi, Lidl nonetheless is moving forward on its plans to grow its store count. Recently, the grocer opened its newest store in the Queens neighborhood of Fresh Meadows.
The New York Metropolitan area has been a key market for Lidl, and as the grocer expands in a given territory, it does not take a cookie-cutter approach and works to understand the needs of each store’s shoppers.
“Our customers appreciate our value proposition, but what we have to work on is some of the layout of the stores to improve the shopping experience and get to the ethos of who we are as an organization of simplicity,” Frank Kerr, chief customer officer for Lidl U.S. told Progressive Grocer, a sister publication of Store Brands, in an interview during the grand opening of the Fresh Meadows store.
Kerr noted the grocer has heat-mapped stores to give a clear picture of how customers shop in a given location. He noted consumers can do a complete shop at Lidl stores, which allows them to save up to 40% against national brands on pricing. But Lidl officials are also focused on saving time for shoppers.
“What we think is important as well is (shoppers) can save 17 minutes during a shop in one of our stores,” he said. “We view that complex value proposition as delivering on price, delivering on quality, not sacrificing on either one of those, but then also the value of giving them time back to their days.”
Kerr said Lidl continues testing new concepts at individual stores that include new layouts, new flow to stores as well as product adjacencies. He declined to provide additional details but noted there is some “exciting stuff” in the pipeline.
One area where Lidl has made improvements is with its app. According to Kerr, recent upgrades make the customer journey “more simple” and allow shoppers to see myLidl deals while also having access to personalized offers.
“We have made a lot of improvements on the back end to really enrich our customer data to provide a better-personalized offer to the customer,” he said.
(Photos by Natalie Filtser.)
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Lidl's Fresh Meadows store offers a wide selection of produce. -
The meat department at Lidl's Fresh Meadows store. -
Lidl's Fresh Meadows store offers a broad selection of frozen food. -
Lidl's Fresh Meadows store offers a selection of non-food products. -
Shoppers at Lidl's Fresh Meadows store are greeted by its bakery department.
