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?

It just occurred, what if somebody goes in as part of a large group. How can a camera follow 15-20 people at the same time? There was a horde of students gathered in the parking lot, if they all marched in together their daft camera would explode 😂

Multiple cameras?

So many questions..

I can see why there’s a thing about putting goods back where they should be. People can be quite random about where they put goods they’ve changed their minds about and some will obviously be wasted.

Im one of those people that no one thinks will cope with online banking, but I do use online banking and I use my phone or watch to pay for goods.

I expect it will come ultimately, but I expect opposition and teething troubles.

No thanks, let's not all agree.

This doesn't bother me at all, sometimes I am happy to nip in and out of a shop and not have to make polite chit chat while I pay for my stuff.

The way tech is going it makes me wonder what will happen to minimum wage workers - they are constantly finding ways of replacing them with screens and robots and even self-driving cars.

I'm quite people-avoidant and was an early adopter of scan your own shopping and self-service tills, despite the discomfort of knowing that customers doing the work meant fewer jobs.

But these shops cross a line for me. They're disenfranchising elderly people, those with disabilities and people who aren't comfortable with technology. I will avoid shops like these for as long as I can.

Atm it's enough for me to use self checkouts!

Only recently introduced to some of my local supermarkets.

The one I mainly use has 6 & it's only for no more than 10 items.

That’s what the self checkout tills are for.
No need to have a camera following you, needing to put items exactly where you found them etc….
Not even talking about the QR code and whatnot. That’s not making it easier than scanning your products yourself. It does (probably? If the technology is good enough etc…) help the shop re shop lifting.

This system is there fir the benefit of Aldi, not yours as a customer.

Out of curiosity, was it very busy in there? Did people seem happy with it? I wonder how popular it is, because the more popular it is the more likely it will be they will roll it round the country.

They don’t care about the current elderly as they will be gone in few years while they trial this. By the time they implement this method, the new elderly generation will be wiser than the current one and are tech wise and happy to do cashless payments.
Might have to send my robot to do my shopping 🤣

Shop there, or don't shop there.

If you don't want to shop there, then it's not for you. It's not a big deal

Sounds cool

It removes the massive inefficiency of taking stock off a shelf, putting it in a trolley, unloading the trolley, scanning the shopping and reloading the trolley.

its massively much more efficient.

What if I only have £9.99 in my account and pop in for a pint of milk and a loaf of bread?

How long is it before the £10 is refunded to your card if you don't spend anything? I know in our shop if there's a fault which means you are debited for your shopping but it hasn't gone through the till, the money can take up to 10 days to go back into your account, despite the fact that the BANK HAS IT.

Your £10.- is making someone else a bit of money ... so you could easily encounter something similar!

I'm interested in what happens if the fire alarm goes off - does the security guard have to put everyone in a big cage in the carpark until they can be escorted back in to use the exit barrier?

Has that taken over the Amazon store (same method) - near the Picturehouse cinema?
I'd just go to the little Sainsbury's next door if I was there or hop on the DLR to the ASDA over at Isle of Dogs rather than faff with that.
Very weird way to shop. I believe many of the Amazon ones have closed so I am guessing it's not a popular method.

It was completely dead in there, whereas the sainsburys local a few doors away was heaving.

I was queueing in sainsburys local for a good 10 minutes as the horde of students I mentioned earlier were all in there, en masse, buying things.

They didn't have any garlic bread which is why I nipped into the Aldi afterwards 😬

It now makes sense why they all flocked into the sainsburys!

Where we are headed 🙈

I avoid self check out, let alone this futuristic nightmare. However, if I was still near G I'd have to go in to try it out. But I hope it doesn't become 'the norm'

my nearest supermarket is a Waitrose & it makes me feel very young!! (And I'm 55) so I don't think it'll appear here anytime soon!!

It's a bad place to have that style store. Greenwich is a high tourist area - full of people who don't know how Oyster cards and pelican crossings work - let alone this nonsense.

@TheDandyLion sadly cost savings and profit increase seems to be the only reason for tech development. We've all gotten sucked in.

I do wonder though, are the prices lower in this specific store to make up for lower running costs? Or is the tech costing the same as the low paid staff (in which case whats the point?!)

WTF? I'd be shopping elsewhere. What a nightmare.

I think the trialled something similar at sainsburys but binned it off rapidly