Germany’s budget giant Lidl is getting into cars
Lidl, Germany’s discount supermarket giant, is offering customers the chance to lease a car quickly and cheaply through its website from today.
The chain has partnered with leasing platform Vehiculum, and is running a special launch offer to lease a Fiat 500 for just €89 (£79) per month. The cars need to be picked up in either Berlin, Erfurt, or Halle.
The cars can be rented for a year, 36 months or 48 months, and the lease organised online, with a credit check and video verification for identity. However, Lidl notes that customers should anticipate a waiting time of between six and 12 weeks before they get their car.
The founder of the leasing platform Vehiculum, Lukas Steinhilber, told Germany’s Süddeutsche Zeitung that the whole leasing process should take about 15 minutes. Steinhilber founded Vehiculum in 2015 with the aim of bringing transparency to the “overpriced and analogue” car-leasing market for business customers.
The discounter’s move into car leasing may allow it to harness the trend away from car ownership towards on-demand mobility options like car leasing and sharing.
Lidl, which has over 10,000 stores in 28 countries, has been steadily disrupting the UK supermarket landscape and gaining market share, like its German competitor Aldi. A survey by property buyer Good Move last week found that more people in the UK would rather live near a Lidl or an Aldi supermarket than near high-end shops like Waitrose.
While Lidl has distrupted the British grocery market, it has struggled to replicate its success in the US, since launching there in 2017.
