Futuristic ALDI, what the hell?

[BlackFriYay]

I've just nipped into an Aldi in Greenwich to grab a couple of bits and feel like I've just stepped into the future.

When you enter you're met with electric barriers which you have to tap your card on in order to enter. When you tap, aldi takes a £10 holding charge which goes towards your shopping.

As soon as you pass through the barriers you are picked up by some high tech smart camera which follows you around the shop.

Whatever you pick up from the shelves is added to your shopping bill, unless you put it back exactly where you picked it up from.

To leave, you have to tap your card on the barriers again at which point a code is sent to your online banking. You then scan a QR code and enter the 5 digit number on the banking transaction, at which point you get your receipt on screen.

Apparently the receipt process is slightly simpler if you have the Aldi app, which I don't.

There wasn't one member of staff on the floor, just the security guard at the front whom was baffled as to why the whole thing confused me.

Who else has come across this? It was completely bizarre. Have I been living under a rock?

What?! What about it you want to use cash? I don’t know how to do any of what you’ve just said

It’s following the Amazon shop methodology.

Not great for the (often poorer) elderly who can’t cope with a smartphone.

It's a trial store

BBC News - Aldi opens its first till-free supermarket
www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-6003868 1

This sounds quite a similar experience to an Amazon physical shop. I couldn't get my head around how they knew what fresh pastry I had picked from an assortment. I don't think I would want to go there with kids in tow picking things up.

Good Lord, whatever store does that will be losing me as a customer anyhow. I genuinely hope people don't support this BS. It's like a dystopian world where the robots have taken over.

I wouldn't like that at all. What happens if you go in and browse, and don't buy anything?

And what about people who couldn't cope with that level of technology?

I'd hate this.

This is a nightmare! No way I am paying £10 to get into a shop and no way a camera should be following me around counting what I pick up. It is just stupid.

Let's all agree to shop with cash in our local Aldis. The more cash buyers the less likely they are to make the move.

I thought there was a reveal on these … in the end it isn’t fancy tech, it’s people in lower cost locations watching everything on video

think it was Amazon ‘just walk out’

The day I pay a tenner just to enter a shop is the day I begin foraging for roots and berries.

What a hideous dent to one’s dignity.

Terrifying. And how does the camera follow you round the shop? drone 🤷‍♀️ like a parrot on your shoulder 👀

Never heard of this and I didn't know about Amazon stores either.
Interesting. How do they create this technology? I suppose it could be a 24h store with some staff around the clock to top up the shelves.

I think I'll go and see it for myself next time I'm in those parts - very curious to see the whole setup.

but would exclude someone who only has £8 on their card until payday tomorrow and only wants to pick up a loaf of bread?

That’s actually blown my mind. I’ve never come across anything like that.
I really dislike the over reliance on technology. Even with self-serve tills they are often down, not accepting cards etc. This Aldi sounds like a disaster waiting to happen. Someone hacks into their system and everyone’s accounts could be emptied. So much room for error with it too. Not for me.

Is this a fancy way to stop thieving?

Try to pay with cash in most places if you can everyone

I’d take it home and have my own little guard robot.

Since my roomba died I’ve missed having a little robot companion.

oh no way would I be into this! what if you don't spend a tenner? It sounds like a massive faff, I'm just getting my head around bringing my plastics & cans back to shops for my refund & I'm pretty techy BUT this is a step too far.. like pps have said what about old people?

I know pensioners who've never owned a smartphone and have no intention to get one so that's them excluded along with people living on the breadline who might not have a whole £10 in their account, like pp pointed out.

I won't be going back that's for sure.

A code is sent to your online banking? What?

Not everyone carries online banking capability about with them. I'd have to leave the shop, go home, get the code, pay another tenner to get into the shop, discover I've been timed out by the bank, repeat ad nauseam until I get a fine for breaking the rules of the privately managed car park. Tempting.

Whatever you don't spend from the £10 is refunded back to your card, but if for whatever reason it miscalculates or something goes wrong then it'll be a royal ball ache to have to call customer services on the phone I would imagine.

@BlackFriYay yeah to be honest that's not really instilling confidence in me, the whole thing is a joke

Does it still have the Aisle of Shite?

Well there was a thread the other day about a woman not feeling guilty buying washing powder etc from a drug addict who regularly knocked on her door to sell stuff he had stolen.

Quite a few justified it by saying since it was mostly washing powder and formula it was fine to buy stolen goods. Because the shops make so much money anyway.

So, this is what happens then.

So it's a cost saving exercise so they don't have to pay staff wages.