Shopping Hours and Entry - an Empirical Analysis of Aldi’s Opening Hours

Aldi, the biggest discounter in Germany, started to systematically extend shopping hours of its stores in 2016. We interpret the decision to extend opening hours of a specific Aldi store as entry into a new market. By using a novel data set containing the opening hours of nearly all German grocery retailers, we find the following interesting correlations: The probability that a given Aldi outlet extends its shopping hours past 8 p.m. (i) increases if nearby Aldi outlets already extended shopping hours and (ii) decreases if nearby stores run by Aldi’s close competitors did not expand shopping hours past 8 p.m.. These results seem surprising in conjunction with cannibalization and residual demand, but can be explained by consumer and firm learning or market expansion.