One Crucial Tip That Every Shopper Should Know About Aldi Grand Openings

If you 1) are an Aldi fan and 2) have never been to an Aldi grand opening, it’s worth the pilgrimage at least once if you can manage it. There is a palpable excitement from customers and Aldi employees alike, an anticipation of this new store that is about to throw open its doors for the very first time. The vibe is cool, and it’s made only better by the fact that everyone is there because they love Aldi.

The swag is nothing to scoff at, either. Right now, the first 100 customers get both a Golden Ticket gift card worth up to $100 and a goodie bag of Aldi products.

Workers also hand out limited quantities of shopping totes and quarter keychain holders. If you’re early enough, you can walk out the door with a lot of cool Aldi stuff before you’ve even spent a dime.

Aldi grand openings are a big thing.

They’re also known to create confusion with some shoppers about one important detail.

An Aldi Grand Opening is Actually Two Openings

When a new Aldi store launches, it actually has not one, but two openings over the course of two days.

The first day is what Aldi calls its Sneak Peek, or what we would call a soft opening. The day before the grand festivities, the store opens like … a normal store. There is, for the most part, no pageantry here, just an Aldi store open for shoppers to go in, look around, and buy stuff. In the world of boats, it’s what you might call a shakedown cruise: a chance to work the bugs out before the real show begins. Any new store is going to have some hiccups, and the Sneak Peek lets the store fix those hiccups before all the insanity of the next day.

And, trust me, the next day will be insane, because the second day is the official Grand Opening. This is the day that ribbons are cut, swag is handed out, and general craziness reigns over the store. It’s the day when some shoppers will line up for hours in hopes of scoring some of those elusive opening prizes. The Sneak Peek is fun, but the Grand Opening is a (much) cheaper, smaller version of rope dropping Magic Kingdom at Disney World.

People Often Confuse the Two

There is frequently confusion among shoppers as to when the real grand opening is. That’s not altogether Aldi’s fault, as the grocer offers detailed information on its website for each opening, including the dates of the Sneak Peek and Grand Opening.

The problem, instead, is that the message isn’t always filtered clearly to the public through other means. News outlets may report “opening day” as the soft opening day, and we’ve seen word-of-mouth be just as imprecise.

Does it matter? If you’re trying to get the opening day swag, yes, it does. We’ve been to soft openings that were loaded with people lined up early in the morning because they thought they were going to get the grand opening swag. It’s a lot of time lost when you don’t even have a chance that day to get the things that you were lined up to get.

Closing Thoughts

Aldi new store openings are a spectacle, and they’re worth seeing if you have the chance. However, it’s also important to make sure that you have the dates right, because Aldi openings usually have a soft opening the day before the Grand Opening. The soft opening is usually a normal day for the store to iron out the bugs, while the Grand Opening is when the famed Aldi giveaways and all the other magic happens.

For that reason, if you plan on going to an Aldi opening, make sure you check the Aldi Grand Opening page to see exactly when things are happening.