Merkur is pretty similar to grocery stores in the U.S. -- a large selection of products, wide aisles, bright lights. In fact, when my family was visiting last month, I heard my mom tell my dad that the store was "just like Albertson's."
Lidl, on the other hand, is a bit different. The environment is kind of like a warehouse store, but it's much, much smaller. Here, I'll show you.
This is the entire width of the store. All together, the store has six aisles in the back half and five aisles in the front half. You'll only find your basic food needs here and mostly off-brand products. But the cost is much lower than Merkur.
And even though they don't have a large selection of items, they do have some rather unusual things. There are two rows of bins that stretch the length of the store and each week new items show up in the bins. Take a look.
Sorry for the poor photos. I was trying to be inconspicuous with my camera.
Often, the items in the bins are seasonal. For example, during the winter you could find coats, ski pants, boots, snow shoes, and even ice skates. And now that spring is here, you'll find all kinds of gardening equipment, home improvement supplies, springtime clothing, and outdoor games. I always enjoy browsing through the bins even though I've never bought anything from them. (Not at this store anyways.)
One more interesting thing about Lidl -- and grocery stores here in general -- is that there is a lot of space dedicated to candy. Even though Lidl is tiny, they still have half an aisle of candy. And it's the only aisle that has primarily brand-name products.
One of the most unusual things about the grocery stores is that you have to pay a deposit for the shopping cart. The carts are chained together and when you put a coin into the blue box on the handle, the chain pops out from the back of the blue box. When you return the cart and stick the chain back into the blue box, your coin pops out.
Despite the deposit system -- and the signs that say you can be fined for removing the carts from the property -- it's pretty common to find grocery carts like this:
The other day I noticed someone who had three grocery carts in front of their house -- all from different stores. Somehow people figure out how to get their coins out without returning the cart.
A few more interesting things about grocery stores in Vienna:
- You have to provide your own shopping bags or purchase bags from the store and you have to bag your own groceries.
- Another interesting thing about the shopping cart, all four wheels can pivot (unlike the U.S. carts where only the front two wheels pivot). This is nice when you want to move your cart sideways, but it means you can't really pull the cart from the front end. I learned that the hard way while nearly taking out a whole shelf of bottles.
- There's really no such thing as one-stop-shopping. Sometimes you have to go to a certain store to find a certain item. Take cooking spray (like Pam) for example. I've only found it at one grocery chain even though other stores carry other products by the same brand.
- Organic and fair trade products are much more prevalent here than in the U.S. (or at least in Oklahoma).
