Get Latest Business News from All Over the World 24/7 throughout the Year: We visited Aldi rival Lidl stores in the US and UK and found that one offered much wackier products, including massage guns, leaf blowers, and $59 kayaks

The exterior of a Lidl store in Harlem.
Juliana Kaplan/Insider

Lidl – Aldi's arch rival – sells own-label products that look just like big brands.
Its stores focus on promotions and discounts, and is like the Ikea of grocery stores.
We visited Lidl stores in London and New York City to see how the two stack up.

German discount grocery chain Lidl, which has has close to 12,000 stores globally, is rapidly expanding stateside. It opened its first US store just five years ago and already has more than 150 stores. It came to the UK, where it has more than 920 stores, in 1994.

Lidl store in Poland — Beata Zawrzel/Getty Images

Sources: Lidl GB, Insider, Lidl GB, Lidl US

Lidl uses a similar approach to Aldi, with both grocery chains famed for their cost-cutting measures, emphasis on promotions, and own-label products that often mimic big brands. But Aldi is much more established in the US, where it has about 2,200 stores.

Sources: Aldi US

Lidl's US operations are much newer than its UK ones – but what it may lack in experience of the US grocery market, it could make up for through lessons learnt in its decades operating overseas. Insider visited a Lidl store in London and one in Harlem — Manhattan's first Lidl — to see how they stack up.

Source: Lidl

The Lidl we visited in the UK was a standalone store with its own parking lot in a residential suburb of London. Lidl stores typically have a much smaller floor space than other grocery stores.

A Lidl store near Peckham, London, UK — Grace Dean/Insider

The Lidl we visited in Harlem was a completely different store format. It was in a busy urban area, nestled between a Starbucks and a Chase Bank branch, and didn't have its own parking lot. But from the road it looked very appealing and offered some nice sidewalk greenery.

To enter the London store, you had to go through two sets of doors. It was a bit like airport security. There were also separate doors for entering and exiting, which is uncommon in the UK.

At the Harlem store, you had to go through automatic doors, and then an automatically opening gate. Like many grocery stores in New York City, you don't go out the way you came in.

The entrance to the Harlem Lidl.
Juliana Kaplan/Insider

As well as carts, both stores had baskets with wheels and handles so you could opt to pull rather than carry them if your shopping got too heavy. They're much smaller than carts, but a little harder to navigate.

The London store seemed relatively spacious, with wide aisles and shelves at sensible heights that didn't tower above you.

Some of the products were in strange places, like this pallet of Nutella next to the sanitary products.

There was also a stack of fresh produce in the middle of an aisle, though there was plenty of space to walk around it.

There were some gaps, but overall the shelves seemed pretty well stocked.

Rather than unpacking products in rows on its shelves, Lidl displays them in the crates and boxes they're delivered in, meaning there were a few empty crates dotted around.

The pallets formed the whole structure of some of the aisles of products.

Lidl sells items straight from their delivery boxes in its US stores, too.

There was a strange abundance of lasagna noodles in Harlem. — Juliana Kaplan/Insider

The shelves at Lidl in Harlem were pretty well stocked and the store looked neat.

Shelves at Lidl Harlem were well stocked. — Juliana Kaplan/Insider

We visited at peak grocery shopping hours — after 4 p.m. on a Sunday — and it looked like shelves were being actively restocked. We did spot a cart filled with the boxes that products came in tucked away towards the back, though.

Some empty boxes at Harlem's Lidl. — Juliana Kaplan/Insider

Shopping at Lidl is characterized by a few traits: Low prices, a focus on efficiency, and a rotating selection of time-limited items.

We quickly spotted the bargains at both stores. The UK store had a display of six "pick of the week" fruit and vegetables by its entrance, with prices down by as much as 46%. Aldi similarly has a "super 6" promotion of discounted fruit and vegetables each week.

Source: Insider

These bright orange signs advertising promotions with slogans like "When it's gone, it's gone" were dotted throughout the store, like this random assortment of items that included tea, cereal, and jars of sauces.

It wasn't clear why these items were chosen for discount, as they weren't seasonal or approaching their expiration dates.

The grocery prices at Lidl US are among the lowest in the market. Zucchini (courgettes), for example, cost $1.48 a pound when we visited. Products at Lidl are so cheap that some rival chains are even putting their prices down to compete, a study found.

Some of the produce at Harlem's Lidl. — Juliana Kaplan/Insider

Source: "The Impact of Lidl's Entry on Grocery Prices in Long Island, New York" by Katrijn Gielens

Low-price toiletries were also abundant at Lidl Harlem, posing some stiff competition for Duane Reade and CVS. Some consumers shy away from buying toiletries at grocery stores, since they find them to be more expensive than drug stores – but Lidl actually had toothpaste for $2 cheaper than we'd spotted it on sale for at Rite Aid earlier in the week.

Toiletries were also abundant at Lidl Harlem, stiff competition for Duane Reade. — Juliana Kaplan/Insider

It also had an area with an intriguing assortment of discounted items. We spotted everything from raisins to gummy sushi.

The somewhat random discount section at Lidl Harlem. — Juliana Kaplan/Insider

While Lidl sells some big-name brands, it mainly sells own-label products. Just like at Aldi, some of its products appear to be based closely on popular brands, and in many cases were displayed right next to them but sold for much lower prices. Chocolate biscuits made by Tunnock's cost £1.39 ($1.64) were next to Lidl's own-label equivalent that cost £0.95 ($1.12), for example.

At the Harlem store, Lidl's generic-brand chocolate syrup would cost you nearly $0.50 cents less than Hershey's on-brand product. But Lidl's focus on own-label products means its stores don't always carry a large variety of big-name brands, with usually just one or two leaders for each product category.

Juliana Kaplan/Insider

Some of the Lidl-brand products didn't copy their competitors, though. With these two products, it's hard to spot which is the Lidl-own brand. (Hint: the own-label brand is on the right in a Lidl store in Limehouse, London.)

As well as its basic own-brand products, Lidl sold some premium items with fancier packaging and higher price tags. These included pasta and granola under its "Deluxe" range, along with bars of chocolate under its "J D Gross" brand that cost around 50% more per 100 grams than its generic own-brand label.

The store also sold some organic items under its "Bio" label.

Lidl is well known in the UK for its bakery, which sells fresh bread, pastries, and cookies at bargain prices. A variety of loose bread rolls were available for less than £0.30 ($0.37), while pizza slices cost £0.69 ($0.84).

But when we visited the store at around 4 p.m. on a Monday, many of the products had sold out. The bakery section was tucked away at the back of the London store – perhaps to force shoppers to walk past other rows of products to get their fresh bread.

In contrast, the baked goods were in prime position at the front of the Harlem location, with the smell wafting into the street. Though the display was considerably smaller than the one in the UK, the baked goods are always abundant, and they'll sometimes rotate in new ones. Once, they ran a buy one get one free deal on baguettes. The products weren't quite as cheap as in the UK – when Insider visited, the cheapest bread rolls were $0.59.

The bakery in Harlem's Lidl. — Juliana Kaplan/Insider

The bakery was conveniently across the aisle from the fresh cheese section. As the sign nods to, it seems like Lidl is positioning itself as a go-to for New Yorkers en route to Central Park, which is just a few blocks away.

The bakery at Harlem's Lidl. — Juliana Kaplan/Insider

An unusual feature at the UK store was a station where you could bag up your own loose nuts. While these are common at zero-waste and organic shops, we'd never spotted them at a Lidl store before. Rather than bringing your own containers, you had to scoop the nuts into plastic bags. A small sign said: "Please refrain from eating loose nuts before purchase."

While the US Lidl didn't offer this, there was something uniquely New York: An entire mini-aisle devoted to pickles.

pickle aisle at harlem lidl — Juliana Kaplan/Insider

One strange quirk about the UK store was that the prices were displayed above, rather than below, the items. This isn't normal among UK retailers. What was even more confusing for shoppers was that a couple of displays did actually have their prices below the items.

In the middle of the UK store there was a section dedicated to promotions and special offers, dubbed "the middle of Lidl." This space didn't have food and was instead home to a massive array of assorted and miscellaneous products.

Lidl in Peckham, London, UK — Grace Dean/Insider

They included garden furniture, electronics, cooking equipment, pet products, and kids toys. I spotted recipe books, massage guns, £60 ($71) leaf blowers, £50 ($59) kayaks, and £130 ($153) outdoor dining sets.

The aisles were designated as either "Thursday" or "Sunday," presumably indicating when the stock was being replaced.

There were also some random items for sale at the Harlem Lidl, too. One example was pressure washers, something that we can't imagine too many people living in Manhattan use on a regular basis. But unlike the London store, the displays didn't have quite the same time pressure to snap up a good deal.

There were also pressure washers for sale at Lidl Harlem. — Juliana Kaplan/Insider

And, if you needed some clothing, the Harlem store has got you covered. The display was very jumbled, though.

You could also buy some piles of clothes at Lidl Harlem. — Juliana Kaplan/Insider

In the UK store, there were also a few discount displays of what seemed like odds and ends.

The UK store had a huge display of promotional items centered on a Greek theme. Lidl frequently orders in large shipments of products based around a certain cuisine or theme. The Greek range had previously made an appearance at Lidl in Germany in 2017.

The UK store had some leftovers from its previous Dutch and Belgian theme, too.

Something the UK store seemed to focus on that the US store didn't was the locality of its produce. Signs throughout the store, as well as packaging on products, highlighted how many of its meat and dairy products were British, with union jacks as well as slogans such as "big on British."

Meat aisle in Lidl, Peckham, London, UK — Grace Dean/Insider

We'd noticed the same at Aldi stores in the UK, too.

Aldi Local London UK store — Grace Dean/Insider

At the UK store, you could pay either with a cashier or at a self-service checkout. While self-service facilities have been multiplying dramatically at British supermarkets over the last decade, they're more of a recent phenomenon at Aldi and Lidl, both of which are known for their fast-scanning staff.

Like at other stores, Lidl used the space behind the conveyor belt to plug last-minute items shoppers may have forgotten as well as snacks and treats. These included batteries, chewing gum, and small packs of peanuts.

Lidl checkout in Peckham, London, UK. Customers stand paying for groceries — Grace Dean/Insider

Lidl stores are designed to maximize efficiency. This includes bag packing. Rather than packing your bags at the checkouts like at other UK supermarkets, at Lidl shoppers simply put their scanned items back in their baskets to save on time. A table behind the checkouts gives customers space to then sort their purchases into bags.

The Lidl in Harlem didn't have self-service checkouts; you had to pay at a cashier instead. Checkout was a stressful experience. The area is very narrow, and there's no space to put a basket up on the checkout counter. Instead, you have to bend down to put items up there, and then rush to bag them yourself as quickly as you can.

The checkout at Lidl Harlem. — Juliana Kaplan/Insider

There was also a nice assortment of goodies by the checkout line at Lidl. There was the usual fare like gum and candy, but I thought the Clif bars were a nice touch — I could see myself grabbing some at the last minute.

Goodies by the checkout line at Lidl Harlem. — Juliana Kaplan/Insider

Lidl isn't the easiest of retailers to shop at. With so many signs touting discounts, it was hard to tell where the real bargains were.

But while it can be a little frustrating to not have a wide selection of brands, and the random items are a bit confusing, Lidl offers some of the lowest prices in the business. Some of the measures the store takes to focus on efficiency – like selling items of crates and rushing customers to check out – may be annoying, but at the end of the days these are helping keep prices low.