THE WEEK IN RETAIL ISSUE 49

EDITOR’S COMMENT

HAS ALDI ACTUALLY WON THE LOTTERY?

So all 900 Aldi stores are going to be furnished with shiny new National Lottery terminals by summer, then? When the news broke recently it left a lot of retailers furious, but it also seems to have left many of them just plain baffled.

When I spoke to Edinburgh Premier retailer Dennis Williams this morning about it, he was less wound up about it than I’d expected. No, the overall vibe I got from him was more puzzlement than anger. Why are they doing it? Why now? How will it affect their all-important speed of service? Why do they even want a 4% margin product in their stores? So many questions.

Dennis, of course, wasn’t chosen at random. Dennis is one of those privileged retailers who had an Aldi open almost literally next door to him a few years back so I suspected this might be a particularly sore one for him to take. But he remains surprisingly sanguine about the whole thing. He did lament the timing of the decision, after the heroic actions of all local retailers across the UK over the last 12 months and wondered whether this was “what they got as a thank you”.

But most of what he had to say revolved around the in-store realities of operating a National Lottery terminal. Why in the world does Aldi want a very low margin product that is relatively time consuming for staff to service? What impact would it have on queues in Aldi stores? Why has Aldi decided to do it now, of all times? Surely they’ve spoken to Camelot in the past, so why choose now to act on it? Are the price-matching strategies of Tesco and Sainsbury’s having an impact and does Aldi need fresh ways to drive footfall?

There’s no telling what drove the move from Camelot’s side. Perhaps its licence running out in 2023 has something to do with it. Maybe it was as simple as a quick and easy way to add a whopping 900 extra terminals and add a big boost to sales – although how many of those will be at the cost of the independent retailers who have been so fundamental to the National Lottery’s success over the years?

So many questions and so few answers. Once again, local retailers will just have to roll with the punches the same way they’ve taken countless other challenges on the chin and hope that the move doesn’t significantly impact on their footfall.

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