Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
Aldi stands by a fair number of its products. With many of its private label Regular Buys, the grocer offers its “Twice as Nice Guarantee,” where the grocer offers to refund and replace a product in the event that a customer is not satisfied.
Limited time Aldi Finds are not covered by the Twice as Nice Guarantee. However, many non-food Aldi Finds are backed by some kind of warranty. These warranties aren’t backed by Aldi; instead, they’re backed by a third party, such as the manufacturer, the supplier, or some other company.
Warranty information on the box of a bread maker from 2023. (Click to enlarge.)
In most cases, the warranty information — if there is a warranty — can be found in a few places. Aldi often prints the information on the exterior packaging. Many Aldi Finds also come with a manual that includes the warranty information. Some Aldi Finds even come with their own warranty card.
A warranty card from the 2024 Ambiano Electric Griddle. (Click to enlarge.)
As we’ve learned, physical things can get misplaced. Boxes end up getting thrown away, and sometimes manuals and warranty cards can get trashed with them. Fortunately, Aldi has a solution for that: an online warranty database.
We’ve used this database for years. It provides valuable insight into who backs Aldi Finds, including, occasionally, information that isn’t even included with the product packaging. We’ve been known to link to some of the landing pages for those warranties to assist readers if they need additional help finding warranty support. The Aldi warranty database didn’t have every Aldi product warranty, but it had a lot of them, which made it worth something.
Admittedly, the interface was old. That’s why, in the spring of 2024, Aldi gave its warranty page a serious makeover.
For better and for worse.
The Good:
A screenshot of the new Aldi warranty page, with an example search. (Click to enlarge.)
First, the better.
For one, the search function is greatly improved. We found the old warranty search to be frustrating at times. For instance, it didn’t always return a search if we searched for one of the middle words in a product rather than the first word. It also might do the same with internal phrases. This search appears more reliable.
Two, the results are cleaner and more uniform. The appearance is modernized, with an easier-to-read font. The information is standardized, too — the results I found all had the same information, including product number, model number, supplier address, email, warranty period, phone number, and hours of operation.
A search for the Medion Sound Bar. (Click to enlarge.)
The Not So Good:
There are, I’m sad to report, also some downgrades.
First and foremost, each listing no longer has its own specific page. When you search, you get a result, but the web page doesn’t change, so you can’t link to that result. For us, it means we can’t link to a specific warranty page for a product like we used to. If you’re a blogger like us, or if you’re trying to help someone on a message board or social media, now you can’t do so with a direct link.
Second, the new warranty page purges some of the resources in the old format. Some of the warranty listings, especially ones from a few years ago, sometimes contained PDF attachments like warranty cards and, less commonly, manuals. These could be really useful in the right circumstance.
Third, we’re not 100% sure all the old warranty information made the transition. The database appears to go pretty far back — we found a Kitchen Living Microwave Oven from 2013 — but there are some other listings that are now missing. One example is the 2021 Ambiano Four Slice Toaster, which we know used to have a listing because we linked to it. That link is dead now, and there is no corresponding search result in the new database.
Closing Thoughts:
Aldi has revamped its searchable warranty database, and there is some good here, including a better search engine, a cleaner look, and a uniform listing for each item. That comes with some sacrifice, including the inability to link to specific listings and the loss of some listings as well as attachments. Both the old and new databases didn’t always include every Aldi warranty, but that’s a constant.
It’s still nice that Aldi provides shoppers with a way to look up warranty information, although it would be nice if it could somehow unite the best of both worlds.
