British price war: Aldi’s brilliant response to Tesco

Discounter Aldi has responded promptly to British market leader Tesco, who launched a price offensive last week: “We had a plan to price match Tesco but we didn’t want to put thousands of prices up.”

Tongue-in-cheek

Last week, Tesco announced that it would lower the prices of hundreds of popular products to the level of Aldi’s. Red labels marked “Aldi Price Match” appeared on store shelves and on the website in an attempt to stop the discounter’s strong rise: the German chain has gained a significant share of the British market in recent years. Observers, however, thought it was a risky move: after all, no one would benefit from a real price war. Making comparisons with Aldi’s private label products is not obvious, margins will inevitably come under pressure.

Aldi is clearly not alarmed by Tesco’s offensive. On the contrary, the retailer responds to the aggressive campaign with a bit of tongue-in-cheek: “We had a plan to price match Tesco but we didn’t want to put thousands of prices up”, said one tweet. “The only way to get Aldi prices is to shop at Aldi”, another ad said – soon followed by the hammer blow: “Tesco have dropped a few prices. Amazing. All our prices are low every day.”  

In addition, the discounter published price comparisons showing differences of up to 50 % for comparable products, according to The Grocer. A spokesman for the discounter said: “Our promise to our customers is they will always pay the lowest prices on every product we sell. It’s why millions of shoppers continue to switch to Aldi from our more expensive competitors, including Tesco. Aldi customers are guaranteed to make significant savings every time they shop with us.” In short, it looks like Tesco is seeing its campaign come back like a boomerang…