As of November 11, 2026, Aldi's China business expects to close the year with about 150 stores, having opened roughly 60 during 2026 against a prior average near 30, according to country chief executive Jacqueline Chen. The number that decides whether those shelves stay full is not the store count but the third East China warehouse the chain opened in Nanjing, which adds regional distribution capacity before the next tranche of sites goes live. For teams that plan distribution coverage, the order of those two events is the whole argument.
Supply chain first, store sign second
Chen's framing is explicit: supply chain capacity has to exist before a new market is entered, and under a hard discount model the aim is a workable balance between efficiency, cost, flexibility and resilience. That is a distribution statement, not a real estate one. A store that opens ahead of its replenishment line spends its first quarter substituting, delisting and disappointing trips that are expensive to win back.
The Nanjing warehouse is the third the chain has built in East China, and its timing is what makes the opening pace credible. Warehouse capacity is lumpy: it arrives in whole buildings with fixed service radii, so the decision to add one is a bet on a store count that does not exist yet. Reviewing that bet means comparing planned sites against the drive time of the new facility, not against last year's sales per square metre.
A 1,000 square metre box carrying 2,000 items
Assortment is the real constraint
Most Aldi China stores are compact neighbourhood units of about 1,000 square metres holding around 2,000 stock-keeping units, more than 90 percent of them private label. Two items per square metre is the arithmetic that makes the format work, and it is also why availability behaves differently here than in a conventional supermarket. With that little slack, a stockout on a core line is felt on the same day rather than absorbed by a substitute brand; there is no substitute brand to absorb it.
A price architecture anchored near CNY10
Between a quarter and a third of the range sits below CNY10, and the chain's competitors in the value segment, among them Kinglomo, Mart Fresh and Sanjiang Shopping Club, crowd the same point. Merchants tend to price at CNY9.90 to CNY12.90 to trigger the extra-item purchase, and industry buyers say impulse buying falls away sharply above roughly CNY13. A shelf price that low constrains pack size, sourcing and the volume commitments that have to be locked in before the season, which in turn constrains how much assortment a new store can carry.
From single sites to districts
On October 21 the chain signed its first strategic cooperation agreement with a Chinese commercial property group, Golden Eagle International Group, covering the Jiangsu and wider East China markets. The first project is the Nanjing Xianlin store, due to open in January 2026 alongside three other Nanjing sites at Qiaoke Plaza, Jiangning Jingfeng and Jiangbei Impression Plaza. What changes is the unit of expansion: a district or a mall portfolio rather than one lease at a time.
| Market | Footprint | Stated plan |
|---|---|---|
| Shanghai | More than 70 stores | Base market, densifying existing catchments |
| Jiangsu | More than 50 stores | Suzhou and Wuxi opened April 19; Nanjing pipeline of four sites |
| East China, wider | Covered by the Golden Eagle agreement | Roll-out through partner malls in multiple cities |
District-level roll-out changes the replenishment question. Sites that arrive in clusters let one delivery route serve several stores, which lowers cost per case and shortens the interval between drops; sites that arrive one at a time do not. It also raises the cost of a mis-set assortment, because a weak store in a partner mall is visible to the landlord across the whole portfolio rather than to a single landlord.
The localisation pressure is real in both directions. More than 80 percent of the range is sourced from Chinese suppliers, which supports freshness and shorter supply lines, but the country's food cultures differ enough that a single national plan does not travel: the products that move in Shanghai are not the ones a northwestern city buys. Each new province effectively reopens the assortment file, and a district deal can put several such files in front of the buying team at once.
Auditing coverage before a store opens
The fourth step is where expansions leak margin without anyone noticing. A 98 percent availability target borrowed from a mature Shanghai store is unachievable in a catchment the warehouse has never served, and a team measured against it will report failure every week until the route settles. Setting 96 percent for the first eight weeks and tightening afterwards keeps attention on the core items that generate trips rather than on a headline figure.
By that reading the 150-store target is the smaller half of the plan. One warehouse, a 2,000-item core and a property partner that can hand over several sites at once set the ceiling on how fast those stores can open well. Distribution coverage is the precondition, not the consequence, of the store count.
FAQ
Why open a warehouse before the stores that need it?
Because warehouse capacity arrives in whole buildings with a fixed service radius. Committing to one before the store count exists is how the chain avoids opening sites it cannot replenish at the target cost.
What does a 2,000-item range imply for availability?
That every listing carries weight. At two items per square metre there is no room for slow sellers or for substitutes, so a core-item stockout is felt the same day.
Why does a property group deal change the operating model?
It moves expansion from single leases to districts. Several sites arriving together can share a delivery route, which cuts cost per case and shortens the gap between drops.
Which metric should a new catchment watch first?
On-shelf availability for the core range, reviewed weekly for eight weeks. Sales per square metre only becomes informative once the replenishment rhythm settles.
