No frills

No-frills is the term used to describe any service or product that has the frills of the product or service has been removed. The most common products or services of being no-frills included airlines, supermarkets & holidays. These have had in the past had many frills such as free drinks in airlines. The principal in all of this is that if you take away the frills, you get lower prices.

No-frills supermarkets

A no-frills supermarkets is evident for instance, in that typically their stores.

• They do not decorate aisles — or even fill shelves for that matter: Pallets of the products on offer are commonly simply parked alongside the aisles, and customers picking up products will gradually empty them. When all items on a pallet have been sold, it is replaced. Prices are also given in plain labal.
• Queueing at the checkout is also relatively common, which probably means that the staffing levels don't reflect peak time but rather average demand; at actual peak times, customers may have to wait.
• Shopping bags are charged for, they are seen as a frill. Thus many shoppers put their shopping in the old cardboard boxes that the products came in, put it directly in their trolleys or buy shopping bags at a low fee i.e. 3p/5c.
• They work on the principal that in a supermarket, 80% of what people buy is actually 20% of all the items in a shop. So they just stick to the basics.
• They only take cash and debit cards.
• They only open at peak times i.e. 0900-1800 Monday to Saturday.
• They usually do not serve “branded” items.

Examples of no-frills supermarkets are:

• Lidl (Europe)
• Aldi (Europe, USA, Australia)
• Norma (Germany)
• Bonus (Iceland)
• Netto (Denmark, Germany, UK, Sweden, Poland)
• Cassa part of the K-Kauppa chain (Finland)

No frills airlines

A no-frills airline is an airline that offers low fares but eliminates all unnecessary services. The typical low-cost carrier business model is based on:

• a single passenger class
• a single type of airplane (reducing training and servicing costs - usually the Boeing 737)
• a simple fare scheme (typically fares increase as the plane fills up, which rewards early reservations, known as "yield management")
• unreserved seating (which encourages passengers to board early)
• direct, point to point flights with no transfers
• flying to cheaper, less congested secondary airports
• short flights and fast turnaround times (allowing maximum utilization of planes)
• "Free" in-flight catering and other "complimentary" services are eliminated, and replaced by optional paid-for in-flight food and drink.

For a list see List of low-cost airlines

No-frills holiday

A no-frills holiday is a holiday which like a no-frills airline the frills are taken away like:

• in-flight meals
• transfers between the airport and the hotel
• no entertainment
• luxury accommodation
• a simple fare scheme (typically fares increase as the holiday get more people and the better the season gets, which rewards early reservations, known as "yield management")

Examples of no-frills holiday companies are:

• Just, part of the Thomson/TUI group.

Other

Other examples are no-frills cinema (easyCinema), no-frills food range (Tesco value, Wal-mart/Asda smartprice), no-frills mobile phone company (easyMobile, Telmore) and no-frills hotels (easyHotel, Formulae 1, Holiday Inn).