Off the back of applying for trademarks covering hundreds of products in late 2016, German supermarket Lidl is set to launch into the Australian market in the near future.
Already having 10,000 stores across Europe, a rumoured expansion in Australia would see the discount retailer in fierce competition with Aldi.
According to Australian Food News, it would also result in the biggest market shake-up since Aldi entered the marketplace back in 2001. The German giant quickly established itself as the third largest player in the sector however with five major supermarkets competing for dominance in the market share, pundits say a sharp increase in the level of competition between the retailers would be inevitable.
Consumer advocate Choice revealed in 2015 that shoppers could halve their grocery bills by shopping at Aldi, saying that if this same principle is applied at Lidl, consumers will be more likely to embrace another discount chain coming into the market.
The DailyMail last year reported that one of the popular aspects of Lidl is that they are smaller than mainstream supermarkets.
Lidl offer a smaller range of around 1,500 products, keeping costs down and enabling shoppers to spend less time browsing the shelves.
While Lidl are still unconfirmed on the jump into the Australian market, executive director of the Australian Retailers Association Russell Zimmerman said: “As an industry association, we would not be surprised if in due course Lidl made a foray into the Australian market”.