The Lidl Effect

On Thursday morning last I had my first 'Lidl' experience; I am offically 'de-Lidl-ed' :)

Lidl is basically a cut-price German supermarket chain that have been in Ireland for a while (5 or 6 years?). Every week they circulate a special offer flyer jammed full of all kinds of things from camping equipment to ski gear and so forth. This usually sets off a frantic dash for merchandise that is good value but let's face it - you ran like a lunatic, elbowing rivals out of your way for the €150 snowboard with bindings, but you live in Ireland and have only been snowboarding twice in your life - chances of using snowboard are very slim indeed! I have no doubt that the closets and garages of Ireland are clogged with Lidl gear that seemed like a great idea at the time.

Thus, upon reading of the scuba offers in the latest Lidl flyer I decided that on Thursday morning I would pop into my local Lidl on the way to work. Who the heck would be down in Lidl at 8am on a Thursday anyway?? Well, as it happened, quite a few people actually - all queuing politely when I arrived at 7.50am. Well once the doors opened at 8am, bedlam ensued. The wetsuits were located at the back of the shop, so a mad dash was required. I am proud to say I did not partake in the mad dash, but being a Lidl newbie, this meant that I was relying on luck to ensure I got the wetsuit I wanted. All around me, folks were stacking up industrial numbers of wetsuits and checking sizings via mobile phone conversations - were they all opening surf schools or something???

All I wanted was 1 measly wetsuit; I felt so pathetic, and contemplated gratuitously buying some booties, fins and a new mask :)

So wetsuit in hand, off I went to the checkout. What I love about Lidl is that they don't play any piped music in their shops, so browsing the aisles is a bit of a Stepford Wife experience. People speak in hushed tones as they try to identify the unfamiliar German brands of cereal and orange juice. The clang and rattle of trolleys punctuate the silences. It's kinda nice once you get used to it. So, if you are lucky you sometimes get a bit of banter in the checkout queue - unheard of anywhere else in my experience. So it was, the guy in front of me was buying plants and he remarked "I bet you never thought we'd ever be queuing at 8 in the morning to get special offers eh?"; he was right. So he then spent 5 minutes advising me and the lady behind me, laden down with wetsuits, on which plants to buy for small, shady spaces.

You'd kill for that kind of advice in Tesco.

I am now eagerly awaiting the next round of offers.