By Reza Ganjavi, MBA
Aldi Tax Free Shopping / Global Blue Blues
Aldi misrepresenting weight of product in Switzerland
Aldi coming to Switzerland
When Aldi says go drop something in that cardboard box in the store, don't do it. It's probably going to go into a black hole.
A Swiss friend was shopping in Germany. Aldi South in Germany told her to fill out a form to sign up for a card which will then allow her to get the sales tax back when the good are exported. Aldi promised to send her the card in mail. Months and went by and the card never arrived. She asked for my help and we did some follow up. It was a HUGE waste of time and getting the buck passed between Aldi and their tax free department and Global Blue who administers it for them. Bottom line is Aldi South never sent the card, and never refunded the tax on export as they had promised, and trying to hold them accountable was impossible despite spending an hour on the phone getting bounced around, till my friend gave up.
Aldi misrepresenting weight of product in Switzerland
Dear Aldi Suisse
I bought a bunch of bio Feta cheeses from you. They are marked as 200 grams. One was 170 grams. This is very uncool. I am curious if you have the internal control to catch such a production issue -- is it an error? What is your margin of error? As far as I know consumer products and the concept of truth in marketing (I have an MBA in marketing) says the weight should not be less but it's ok if it's more.
I am curious in your response / policy / attitude towards this topic. Because as is, a consumer is misled into believing a cheese is 200 grams while it is in reality 170 grams and at least warrants a 15% reduction in the price, which ordinarily does not happen since nobody weighs your cheese and just trusts you in it. I happened to check it.
Regards
A Swiss Citizen
~~~
They sent an apology and a 5 franc voucher. I went to use it, the lady said first I have to buy 50 francs worth of goods. I knew she was wrong but had no interest in engaging in a discussion. So I wrote to Aldi. They said she was wrong, and sent me a 20 franc voucher :-)
Aldi coming to Switzerland
I welcomed Aldi coming to Switzerland since they had a no hassle return policy unlike Coop and Migros at the time, since the Swiss culture was not customer centric at the time (unlike the USA and UK who understand it costs less to keep a customer than gain a new one). Aldi, my own activism, and other foreign influence helped the attitude shift among the major Swiss supermarkets. So this foreign pressure was good for the Swiss consumers. Coop and Migros switched to promoting being customer friendly, and not to treat customers who wanted to return something, like a criminal (it is not part of the passive Swiss culture to return something traditionally).