20% of Aldi’s Annual Sales Are Estimated to Have Come From Its ‘Aisle of Shame’ — Here’s What You Need to Know About It

Need a chainsaw? A trumpet? Some bedding? The German grocer's weirdest aisle's got your back.

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Visit the r/Aldi subreddit often enough, and you'll surely scroll past a post that mentions the store's "Aisle of Shame," whether it's an Aldi regular showing off the random items they found in the German chain's most "chaotic" section, a customer complaining that their store's center aisle isn't chaotic enough, or a confused shopper asking what, exactly, the Aisle of Shame is.

"It's where you can find weird s--- you never knew you needed," one Aisle of Shame regular explained on r/Aldi. "Last week, I found a queen comforter set marked down for $3, a hanging plant basket, a metal watering can, and some pickles."

That kind of sums it up: It's the center section in most Aldi stores where you can find an ever-changing assortment of products, including more standard grocery items and some real surprises.

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It’s also massively popular among Aldi shoppers: In addition to that subreddit, there’s an “Aldi Aisle of Shame” Facebook community with over 2.5 million members. And there are more than 1,000 TikToks with the #aisleofshame hashtag.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Aldi doesn’t refer to it as the Aisle of Shame, opting instead to classify it as the “Aldi Finds” aisle — and in one press release, the grocer referred to it as the “Aisle of Fun.”

Customers also have other names for it. In 2019, one reporter for The Guardian wrote that he’d heard it referenced as “the WTF aisle,” “treasure aisle-land,” “the Aisle of Wonder,” and “the Aisle of S**t.”

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Regardless of what you call it, every week, the chain stocks that section with around a hundred different items, usually 50% edible and 50% non-edible. Purchases from that aisle also really add up: Nils Brandes, the retail consultant who co-wrote Bare Essentials: The Aldi Story, told Atlas Obscura that he estimated that up to 20% of Aldi’s annual sales could come from things from that now-infamous aisle.

“The customers who come in and only buy milk and eggs are not great for Aldi. No one really makes money off of that,” John Clear, senior director of the Consumer and Retail Group at consulting firm Alvarez & Marsal, told CNN. “You have to get that customer who comes in once or twice a week to also pick up some other products. That’s where this aisle of shame fits in and helps Aldi offer its low prices overall.”

Aldi

Aldi's "Aisle of Shame," which is branded as "Aldi Finds" in stores, carries all the random and cool deals shoppers never knew they needed.

According to Aldi, in any given week, the Aldi Finds aisle can include anything from “Bat Knit Crazy Cheddar and other Halloween-themed cheeses and decor; luxury jarred candles; pre-mixed mimosas; a range of Advent calendars including cheese, chocolate, toys, beer and premium wine; home furnishings including a recent social media favorite teal cabinet; small kitchen appliances, pet sweaters, cast iron cookware, and yes, even chainsaws.”

So who actually coined the term “Aisle of Shame?” No one knows for sure.

The Aldi Reviewer website connected it to a handful of online references from the “mid-to-late 2000s” that reference the “aisle of shame” in other contexts, like the Fantasy section in bookstores, the area in drug stores where you find certain personal care products, or even the walk a late-to-board passenger has to make on an airplane.

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In the context of Aldi, the site explains, “the ‘shame’ seems to revolve around the joke that people go to Aldi intending to get bread and milk, but they end up shamefully drifting into the middle aisle and purchasing things they may not need, from teal cabinets to pressure cookers.”

We don’t think there’s any shame in going to Aldi for a box of Girl Scout cookie dupes and leaving with a blow-up mattress, a box fan, and a seasonal candle — unless you post your best finds somewhere online so the rest of us can marvel over them. That would be truly shameful. 

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