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Comment by VLM | Hacker News Reader

"Germany enjoys a healthy pro capita income"

Locally walmart means absolute junk quality for poor people who wait in long lines. The description of Germany is a good fit for retail in general, but not walmart. This truth can't be stated in a commercial publication, walmart spends too much money on advertising, but I think it fairly obvious.

Now Target could have possibly made it. Or maybe walmart could have made it in far southern or eastern Europe in very poor areas.

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lidl is the epitome of junk quality for poor people who wait in long lines, and it's the quintessential german supermarket.

Lidl seems to have a terrible reputation in the UK and Italy (and possibly elsewhere), but in Germany they're just another discounter.

We do have some more upscale supermarkets, but there's generally little variance in quality among the discounters. Although Lidl does have by far the best store brand (J.D. Gross) chocolate.

The food in Lidl isn't junk quality, most of it is fine. They have some junk quality non-food stuff quite often but there's nothing wrong with the food in my experience.

I can't comment on Lidl in Germany, but the quality of goods at Lidl in the UK is actually fairly high. You do generally wait in long lines though...

In Germany, Lidl and Aldi do attract higher income brackets as well. It's not considered a freak accident to see a Mercedes/BMW/Maserati/Audi/Tesla parked in front of them. Also small-family diner owners buying there as well, as Aldi/Lidl often beat wholesale prices (Metro Group).

Of course, if you visit one in the red light district it's going to be a different experience.

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