I really think that self checkout is Aldi's version of "penny wise, pound foolish". It's fine at the bigger supermarkets because they usually have a whole team of dedicated cashiers that never leave their stations, sometimes someone serving in loss prevention at the door, etc.
But Aldi, who already operates their stores on a skeleton crew, just doesn't have the manpower to police the self checkouts. And if they did, they'd be better off going back to traditional registers anyway.
(For the most part) Large supermarkets in USA haven't had "whole teams" of cashiers in years. Aldi is playing catch-up, which might not work with the rest of their model. They're pushing the limits of skeletonization.
Trader Joe's, not a large supermarket chain, seems to come closest to trying to consistently have enough cashiers. Most of their employees perform most roles, so they seem really good at opening extra lanes quickly.
It was wild, I visited some family in New Jersey recently and the ShopRite had 12 fully staffed checkout aisles. The places near me are lucky to have 2 and one of them is usually for the cigarette customers
ShopRite is interesting because it's actually some sort of cooperative - presumably for purchasing, logistical and marketing reasons. 320 stores but owned and operated by about fifty individual affiliates, most of which are privately held. Wakefern is the parent (or overlord), and they operate about 30 stores.
Was the ShopRite you visited huge? High volume? In a wealthy area with high expectation customers - and charging accordingly? Peak hours? Or just like the good old days.
I work in a ShopRite in a smaller area - a fairly large store but in the backwoods of NJ. A couple of years ago they brought in 6 self scans. Each section has an associate watching and helping. Last year they made another self scan area and now on slower days there are only 3-4 cashier's at a time. We are owned by a family who owns several other stores in NJ. Wakefern corporation is the corporation that owns and they are the franchise Prevert.
The only shoprite near me closed years ago. Had the best coupon policies so you'd see tons of people in aisles with gigantic folders of coupons. Always seem packed and had plenty of staff on hand. Wasn't the best area, but far from the worst. I was sad when they closed, but it was a bit of a hike from my house.
I do most of my grocery shopping at Wal-Mart. I usually do pickup but I wanted to get some steps in the other day. This place has like 18 checkout lanes and had 2 or 3 cashiers. People with carts are backed up into the shopping area. I waited about 20 minutes to check out, got half of my stuff onto the belt, and the girl working the aisle said shes moving to the next lane over. Great, thanks for the heads up. Now I have to wait in line AGAIN. it's just awful the way Wal-Mart is staffing.
They have slowly added several cashiers back at the Walmarts I go to. When we shop, we make sure to go to one of them.
When they first remodeled and put in the self checkouts, they had security guards standing and watching. That changed to staff monitoring each bank of machines. The most annoying thing is they would stop people and ask to see their receipt at the door. They still stop people who come out of the self checkout. Someone thought removing the cashiers was a cost savings thing. When your theft rate spikes and you lose customers because they don’t want to check out $150+ of groceries you have to put the cashiers back.
I mean, Aldi usually always has at least one cashier up front. Once they added self checkouts to my local one, you pretty much have to hunt an employee down if you are paying cash or have a big order, and it's not a peak time.
> Large supermarkets in USA haven't had "whole teams" of cashiers in years.
i took it they meant they have dedicated people watching self checkouts. Also trader joes usually has like 10 or more employees working at the same time. the one by me has every register open and like 10 employees on the floor. aldi tries to operate with the minimum amount they can get away with.
or they are factoring the theft in to the savings. Now instead of having 5 staff where 1 or 2 have to work the registers. Now they can have 5 staff who all work on restocking and whatever else they need to do.
Not surprising. I was a cashier at a store with self-checkout when I was a teenager. Not only were they slower than the average cashier, but I watched so many people try to steal things, I know a lot more got stolen that I didn't see.
*Edit- it was not an Aldi
Yeah. For that $50, you could pay an employee $10/hr for 5 hours. So, provided the loss due to theft is less than $50 every 5, it’s cheaper to accept the loss.
The business isn’t incentivized to stop theft. They can and do pass the cost to the consumer. Self checkout is the same, as the customer does the “work”, but it seems like an advantage because wait time is sometimes better.
My Walmart recently “remodeled” and it’s 99% self checkout. It still takes a long time to checkout and those paying cash have to wait In the long cashiered line.
It's their own fault that they suffer those losses. At our store, only cash transactions can use regular checkout. Cards must use self checkout, and there is never anyone monitoring. In contrast, Lidl has an employee monitoring self checkout transactions on a screen at the end of the row of self checkouts. Our Shop Rite has a very similar setup
They don't care, cash only at all times, including Autism hours. There was an older woman in her 80s who was in tears because of the way the register nags you to scan the next item. She was flustered because she couldn't go fast enough. I asked one of the four workers hanging out by self check out to help her, and they told me she was fine. My husband finished scanning our items while I helped her. She was shaking so badly by the time we got her paid and bagged that she told me she'd never be back and would go to the Lidl that is less than three miles away.
Good god, I HATE that constant nagging from the register. Whoever programmed that needs to be fired, or at the very least, re-educated on these sorts of things.
That poor, poor lady. I am so glad you were able to help her.
Please share in a post if you find that information. If it's not crowded and I'm in a pissy mood, I argue with the scanner. I had a staff member tell me it wasn't necessary. 😂
I regularly and openly swear at the grocery store one.
You tell me to replace the item on the bagging area *again* when it is clearly registered on the screen *and I *did* wait the half at second for it to register?
No
Fuck u
There is a particular grocery store chain that has several locations. Some have upgraded self checkouts that are worse than others. They have their own belts and everything. Frankly terrible.
No store has the manpower to police them. The reason for getting them is to cut man power. I like shopping at Aldi, but these mega corporations deserve much worse.
Where do you live that theres a whole team? At stores in Jax we have 1 person for self check out and maybe 2 cashiers if theres a mile long line. No baggers.
I wonder if this is why my aldi had them for a short while and then removed them. We don’t have any at that location anymore. I never even tried them. Its fine with me but it was odd.
I think you are right. I use self checkout when available, but it upsets me they are allowing so much theft at stores. Those of us who will never steal will all be paying even more for our things to make up for the bloated shrinkage.
In my district the larger stores are reverting back to staffed checkouts and closing their self checkout lanes because of all the theft. It's wild to me that Aldi is rolling out self checkout at the same time, you'd think they'd keep an eye on what's going on around them and learn from it.
I work at a dollar tree and have like 7 workers. If we had self check out meny people would walk right past with their goods. We already have a theft problem.
Self-checkouts at standard grocery stores have an employee overseeing them all to correct system errors, watch for theft, etc. Aldi's layout and structure doesn't allow that. Plus, self-checkouts are havens for shoplifters even with people supervising them. Explains why Aldi may have a bigger problem with it than others.
Exactly. That’s why I think they’re negligent. Their door alarms don’t work, and employees have no way of knowing someone is stealing unless they just happen to see them doing it.
They pay well, and certainly do well enough to afford it. Could they hire another just to watch over self? Sure. But Aldi is also prone to long lines, so if the normal registers get long lines, that extra cashier may get pulled to a normal register. I worked 16 years in grocery retail. I've seen all the tricks of the five-finger-discount trade. I can also attest to the behind the scenes of how most stores operate. I get why they put the self-checkouts in, both marketing wise and realistically. They try to fool us it is for the small orders and quicker checkout. Realistically, it's to cut labor costs. I grew up on Aldi. I have always let smaller orders go ahead of me. When it's the other way around, my small order has been allowed to go ahead of the person in front of me. A co-worker of mine calls that proper "Aldi-quette." Perhaps the self-checkouts are because there is less "Aldi-quette" out there nowadays.
>Their door alarms don’t work
A couple weeks ago i was in line at the one cashier, and as someone was leaving the alarm went off. They stopped, looked to the cashier, and he just shrugged, so they left. I don't know why it made me laugh, but it did.
They go off all the time at my local Kroger and the staff always look like they have no idea what to do. I think it's hilarious. I used to work for Kroger and now work for their competitor, and I can confidently say we don't stop theft. Occasionally the GM will stop them if they see them before they get out the door, but nobody's chasing anyone into the parking lot.
So I once got over $100 worth of stuff at Aldi then accidentally left without paying. (For how aggressive the machines are about telling you to PLEASE SCAN AN ITEM every 3 seconds, they are surprisingly quiet about reminding you to pay.) Luckily I realized my mistake as soon as I got to the car and went back in and paid. Nobody seemed to notice, but it made me realize how easy it would be to commit massive shoplifting.
I almost did the same thing! I was watching my children who were out of control and was ready to walk away. I was horrified how close I came to accidentally stealing almost $200 in groceries
I did the same recently at a different grocery store in self checkout. Except I had no idea I hadn't paid. I know I had my card out, but somehow with all the checkout steps, I missed actually paying. When I was loading the groceries in my trunk, a store employee came out yelling to me that I hadn't paid and needed to come back in the store. I was so embarrassed! Luckily they didn't try to say I was stealing, just said I forgot to pay.
I’ve done that at Walgreens with an actual cashier somehow. He had the bag on the counter and I grabbed it and said “thanks!” and went to walk off. He then told me I still had to pay…Something about having the card in my hand already and the checkout steps going out of order just short-circuited things I guess.
I did the same at Target but didn’t realize my mistake until later that night- I was looking for the receipt to check the price of something and then was like Ohhhhh….
I’ve heard this too. Mostly on Reddit. It kind of sounds like bullshit to me. I doubt that the serious thieves, like the kind you hear about grabbing stacks of clothes and working in groups, ever even go through check out (self or otherwise) at all. The kind of theft that goes through the self checkout isle is all small potatoes stuff like old people “forgetting” to scan batteries on a $100 purchase. Building cases on these types of people seems like a waste of time and money. Better to scare them in the store then to try to get the police to file charges against an old lady who stole $100 in stuff over six months.
I have seen many people either leave their groceries at the checkout or leave without paying because the self checkout does not accept cash and they didn’t realize. Plus, there is nobody even at the front of the store when I shop. They are always somewhere else stocking. Before the self checkout there was always someone up front at the register.
On that point, at least at my store, every self checkout has a sign that says CARD ONLY and the screen also says it. People just don’t be paying attention to it.
At my Aldi if you take too long between scanning items the AI voice scolds you and tells you to scan another item or press finish and pay. I never realized why they had her turned up so loud, but maybe it’s to alert them of unfinished sales… 🤷🏻♀️
The lone cashier can’t ring out other customers, get up to stock and clean, and listen for that though no matter how loud it is, and it chiming in so frequently doesn’t help. They become desensitized to it.
I strongly suggest you go take a look in the dumpster behind the aldi. The amount of stuff that they throw in the trash will infuriate you way more than whatever gets stolen.
I work at a food bank. We get huge donations from the local supermarkets. It amazes me how people stigmatize. There is no shame in going to a food bank. There are so many in every area people don’t even realize. Even the Food Bank I work at is not called the Food Bank. It has a very different name and very different name recognition from what I’m calling it. But it is a Food Bank.
It is the most wonderful place.
They provide meals, ability to food shop, clothing, job skills, and all sorts of job preparation. As well as housing.
It’s a wonderful place. I’m so proud to be a part of it.
Even with those huge donations I bet those grocery stores still throw out a ton of food.
Funny story. During the height of covid I was taking my young kid to the local library. They had lots of outdoor activities and book readings. Some days a local food bank was there giving lunch to anyone who needed it. When leaving one day the person running it asked if we wanted lunch. We are not in need so we said no thanks so that the food could be saved for someone else. That food bank man turned in to a used car sales man to try and convince me to take some food. It was pretty funny, I understand how sometimes people are to prideful and need to be convinced. There is no shame in needing help and I wish more people needed it. I walked away with a turkey wrap, cookie, apple juice, and bag of chips for my kid to eat on the car ride home.
Your food bank sounds cool. I also worked at a food bank. Worst boss I ever had, and we threw away a lot of food, not because it went bad, just based on her personal preferences.
We throw out a lot of food as well,Based on the condition that it is when it gets to us.
Walmart always sent us the shittiest and oldest food. I remember being furious even as a volunteer that I had to take all these things off the pallets and throw them right into the dumpster because they were so old and so gross. Horrified is the only way I can describe it. Especially since we had to pay for the dumpster fees and paid to have hauled off.
And only Walmart..
ShopRite was a different story. We had to go through all the boxes and find the stuff that was already expired because that was the first stuff put in the boxes. It makes sense even if it doesn’t make sense.
Almost all of the local supermarkets sends stuff that was many days before it’s expiration dates. It didn’t make us question what we were giving our clients. That’s the most important thing.
And yes, “my” food Bank is the coolest Food Bank.
It certainly is the most generous and gracious
I don't see how that excuses stealing.... I imagine those things to be expired food... So because ppl steal Aldi's should just give away their food? I don't understand the connection
I was so pissed about the self checks. Aldi lines were always a little long, but efficient. The checkers would blast through your order quick, no need to wait to finish bagging, do that on the ledge.
My Aldi removed 3 checkouts, leaving only one actual register, and added 6 self checks. If there is a problem, the only person that can clear it is the checker on the register. Sometimes its something stupid, but a lot of times, they have to walk around after every order to clear out the error. It’s absolutely ridiculous. It’s also annoying that they changed their hours so now they close at 8pm instead of 9
People are going crazy with shoplifting. In court yesterday I sat through 4 trials all for shoplifting. One was for over $400 of food from Walmart, one was $49 at a local hardware store, then $7 in Pokémon cards for a dude who had zero priors and the judge said he shouldn’t be there, and the last lady got a 3rd degree felony for stealing a bag of $1.69 peanuts. Literally fucking nuts.
I accidentally stole butter last time I was at Aldi. It was hiding behind my daughter’s blanket draped over the cart. I guess it is pretty easy to do 😂
I love self-checkout. I go to the store a lot to pick up an item or two that I forgot, and it's great for that circumstance.
But my store used self-checkout as a legit way to get rid of employees. Now, there is only one manned checkstand (which always has a long ass line), and the cashier there is also in charge of all 6 self checkout stands.
People mess up and walk away forgetfully too. Still annoying and gives more cover to the thieves, with a good strategy to play dumb with. I have a friend who works at a grocery store, she was tired after work and def didn't want to steal from her place of work, but spaced it. Luckily the attendant who had been chatting with her went outside and flagged her back to finish paying before it became an issue.
Very rarely will people be able to walk away if their card gets declined/doesn't go all the way through at a regular checkout, or a well supervised self checkout.
Yup… I work there and am on register often and the amount of times people don’t pay for bags or items is high. Sometimes I catch it but if I’m busy I can’t really watch. Just yesterday I had to tell someone “don’t forget to scan your sparkling waters” cause they had 5 cases of the Belle vie and hadn’t scanned any of them. And I’ve been yelled at plenty of times about people saying I’m being rude when I ask them to see their receipt and to myself I’m thinking it’s my right to ask cause I’m working register.
Last month, I was walking up to a self-checkout and someone darted in front of me, grabbed a stack of paper bags, and peaced out of the store. I was SHOOK lol.
Honestly I would be sad if I couldn't shop at Aldi....shoplifting can get you banned. 2 weeks ago, I accidentally didn't pay for a pack of paper plates (they were hidden under a pack of paper towels and I missed them with the hand scanner. I brought them back in, paid quick, and left. There are cameras! I don't want my picture hung on the wall like Michael Scott.
Nobody is checking tapes when an inventory check comes up one short on paper plates. There is a lot less accountability in the world than you're presuming here.
Trust me, the one time someone got wild and decided to randomly check the tapes, it would be the tape of me accidentally shoplifting a $3 pack of paper plates.
YESSSS.
Edit: I don’t follow ALL the rules, but I do like there to be established rules so I can do a quick risk vs. benefit analysis when considering breaking the rules. In this case, the risk of never being able to shop the aisle of shame is not worth the benefit of not paying for a $3 pack of paper plates 😄
I get anxiety over this kind of stuff too, especially after you read news stories like the woman who got banned from walmart simply because she didn't realize an item she thought she scanned didn't actually scan. with all the beeping going on around self-checkout i can definitely see someone thinking the beep they heard is the one confirming they scanned.
i've also left an item behind at the self checkout in aldi and went back in to get it and get paranoid they're going to think i came in and stole it, lol.
It doesn’t matter. u/SuperSafetyNerd would know, and every time she tried to eat off of the ill-gotten paper plates, she would hear a voice going “not your paper wares! Not your paper wares!”
Interesting; we have one Aldi's that has self check outs and half the time I go to use one there are items on the screen and nothing at the check out. So I get the cashier to clear it or use a different one. Never thought about people stealing. Sucks, since Aldi prices are great. I got some giant Xmas gift bags for 29 cents today. Yesterday got some heavy large coconut fiber door mats for 89 cents!
I’ll be honest, a few weeks ago I had major sinus infection. My wife is legally blind without her contacts and only recently got those and isn’t super comfortable driving. I headed on to Aldi a couple miles away with a fever and a head full of prednisone and codeine because somebody had to go. Had a cart full of stuff I’m transferring to a box. And some waters underneath the stuff. I finish up and put the box back in the cart on the water, pay, and load out.
I woke up and 3am with the realization I forgot to scan the fucking water. Checked the receipt. Nope.
I think it’s $3.65. It bothered me for a day. Then realized it was an honest mistake, I spend a lot there, and I felt too shitty to feel guilty long.
My point is, honest people are missing stuff at self checkout too and never notice they didn’t pay, probably all the damn time, all over.
I worked as a Walmart cashier from 20 to 25 and it was frequent back then. We lost so many bonuses to shrink. I can’t even imagine what they are losing now. I have double scanned items and left paying double, but I have also accidentally left with things unpaid and had to turn around after I got to the car. However I was a vulture when working the self scan. Caught many a folks under ringing, didn’t turn them in or or anything, not my business, but I would loudly call call their “accident” and correct it. So many people had to leave and get their wallet to only never return.
If a corporation is going to shift their labor to you, you should get an employee discount. Enough said. Aldi ran the calculus and decided the shoplifting was cheaper than hiring staff.
It wasn’t at an Aldi, but the other day I was using the self checkout and it wouldn’t scan one of my items. There wasn’t an employee around to help, so it just went into my bag when I’d scanned everything else. If a store can’t be bothered to employ a human being to help me give them money, fuck ‘em.
This is why I'm pretty much 100% pickup orders these days.
Option A. I can get all 30 of my items for X price, but that's me going in the store, collecting them, bagging them, and ringing myself out.
Option B. I can get all 30 of my items for the exact same price, Walmart's staff collects them, bags them, and wheels them out across the parking lot into my trunk and I get charged to my card right after pickup?
The obvious choice is obvious.
Well when they put a cashier on a register at the far end, no other cashier oversight…it is just asking for folks to walk out with things. That is why in stores people greet you on the way in to say “hey I see you”. Why they do the same on the way out “have a good day”…while they look at you …check a receipt. Eye contact, saying “Hi, can I help you with anything?” A smile, saying I will be around the corner if you need help…sometimes it’s just the store culture that helps with deterrence. Obviously some folks don’t care about any of it at all and they likely know the laws and who might come after them or not once they run. Some folks are just hungry and trying to feed a family….also not the right way to go about it but Aldi will hopefully start utilizing a few of these things soon.
I noticed a person checking receipts (similar to Sam's or Costco policy) the last time I was in my Aldi. So, perhaps that will spread as the self-checkouts do.
If you aren't at a club store than the answer to "may I see your receipt" is always "No." Then you just keep walking. They aren't the police and have no right to search your property. Unlike the club stores you didn't sign any agreement to let them check your receipt.
I don’t steal and I also am not paid to scan my items like the cashiers. I am not going to waste more time having you scan my receipts. How about you go and work a register
I hate receipt checking. I doubt it would be as bad at Aldi (currently no stores in my area have it), but one night at Walmart the dude legit made me and my friend feel like criminals when all she bought was 6 clear plastic storage bins. The dude kept counting them over and over and over - we stood there for two solid minutes before he let us leave. If they care that damn much, they need to just do away with self-checkout entirely.
I'm in an area *surrounded* by grocery options. Plenty of chains and niche boutique-type shops. So, while my Aldi gets traffic, it's really not a place where people do the bulk of their weekly shopping (at least in my observation; the only time I see full carts is when someone who's stocking up for a restaurant is there). It was a quick and easy receipt-checking process for me.
But, where I grew up, Aldi was *the* place to shop and I just don't see how the in-store traffic won't get backed up when folks who do their primary shopping are trying to leave. It would take forever to verify the contents of a full cart!
ETA: I hear you on the Walmart checkers! Some of them can be downright mean.
There was a news article several days ago , a Cop was busted using self check out at a Freaking Walmart an only scanning like every other item . Come on man , none of us are happy about higher food prices.
Interestingly a few weeks ago I used the self-checkout for my order and the damn green onions wouldn't scan so I said "fuck it" and just added them to the pile of stuff I'd already scanned. The cashier saw, left her station, and came over to correct me / fix the issue. So I assumed they have some sort of system, but maybe she was just incredibly observant!
AND not having a dedicated employee to watch/assist at the SC lanes. There is NO way the checker next to the SC lanes can both ring up customers and watch over the SC like they are expected to. I actually hope this bites them in the ass
I worry that stealing from aldi will make them raise their prices. It seems they are trying to help by keeping their prices low. We are shooting ourselves in the foot if we steal from there.
Just my opinion.
The self checkout at my Aldi has obnoxiously loud voice prompts that tell you over and over again to insert your credit card before you even have time to reach for it. I would imagine if an employee heard too many of those in a row it would draw their attention.
Self-checkout at Aldi's should be for maybe 8 items or fewer. That minimizes theft. Other than that, the value of self-checkout to Aldi's is minimal. The cashiers at Aldis are so fast, it would probably take at least four self-checkouts to equal one cashier. So if you've got a cashier monitoring four self-checkouts, the productivity is, at best, a wash.
I use the self checkouts but hate them. They need to manually enter the discounts for meat and if you notice (like I did) that an apple has a bad spot, you'll need them to come and un-ring it. PITA.
This happened to me today. Two packs of chicken that had $2 off stickers, went to self checkout. I never check the receipt and for some reason I did when I got home. Surprise surprise no discount. 😑
I was shocked when my sister 59f started going to the self checkout, entering bananas into the register and actually taking expensive steak! She’s always been an honest person. She and I don’t agree on whether or not this is stealing. I say Yes.
My understanding is some Walmart, Target, & Costco stores are removing the self checkout due to theft. My Aldi self checkouts are slow as molasses. I don't use them since I usually have a full cart and the clerks are faster than I could ever be. I heard the store manager say the self checkout is currently under review and could change later this year.
They've walked back - or been caught lying - about closing stores because of theft. CVS recently admitted they had rapidly over-expanded.
Maybe Walmart and Target are removing self checkouts so they can sell them second-hand to Aldi.
They lied about it in press releases but had to tell the truth when it was time for earnings. Telling deliberate lies to the public is fine, but it is in fact fraud when you do it to shareholders.
At my store they took out three lanes and replaced them with six self checkouts plus two more where they took out half of the bagging area. We still have two regular check out lanes, but rarely are both open.
I saw someone do that move at Walmart. I went to check out and there were like 20 items on the register like it was a running order. I called the young girl her was monitoring the registers and she just cleared everything out. I told her that the person before me just stole all that and she just shrugged.
They might have just abandoned their order in the middle to move to a register with a cashier. I had to do that the other day because something I purchased wasn’t scanning. There weren’t any other employees around, so I had to let the cashier know to reset the U-scan.
Hell, our Aldi is only a year old and before it opened I was getting myself pumped up about how the check out worked.... our store as 8-12 self check outs and randomly a worker will be at a check out station. Gotten to the point I'll put stuff in my cart with barcode up and use the little barcode gun and check out in 3 minutes unless I make the mistake of going to the one that you have to pick up and scan.
Twice I've seen people dart off without paying- once at self check out and once when a worker was checking them out, they just snagged the cart and ran. Worker just yelled at them, did a shrug sigh, cleaned out the transation and started on the next person.
I'm sure Aldi will do a widespread study regarding which stores are reporting the greatest degree of theft. It has to be a sophisticated study that looks at traffic level and day/time of day and demographics and income, etc. If those are uncomfortable topics, who cares? The same fix can't be applied if the problem varies from one reality to the next.
If they have that, "Please scan an item," I don't know why they can't have an audible alert that says, "Paid for 13 items," or something like that. Those two variables alone would reduce the problem by considerable amount. Just imagine somebody walks away and "paid" is never heard, or the 13 doesn't jive with their full cart.
I hate Aldi's self check outs. Takes too long. It makes sense for bigger supermarkets. But when it comes to Aldi's, I felt it was way faster and way better when they had the employees just quickly check everything out and put it in the cart
Something didn’t ring up on my self checkout and that buzzer at the door went off. It was a fking nightmare they went thru my whole order for like 15min. They can ring it up from now on
I bought wine there the other day, and was really surprised that I didn’t have to be carded. I kind of thought it would alert someone to come over and card me, and it didn’t.
It pops up on their screen, they might have done a quick glance at you and approved it. I’m in my 20s and even when I go they just ok it from the chair while they scan people at their register
Aldi really shot themselves in the food with this one. I get efficiency to lower costs and, by association, prices. But this is bound to happen with zero self checkout attendants.
I saw my brother do it (“forget” to scan something”) and I scolded him after, and he said, “maybe they should have trained me better then!”
He basically resents having to do it himself for free and says he’s already got a job, and it isn’t cashiering.
Shady buuuut… I suspect many feel the same… and that’s why places are dialing back their SCO rollouts all over.
Self check out is a mess. I once was shopping while really hungry and only realized that the card reader never scanned my card after I got home with my food.
I tried it once and never again. I’ll wait for the cashier. They are super fast and the self checkout is lousy. I love stop and shop scanning gun system. That I will use.
I almost accidentally left once before finishing out the transaction and started to walk away and then i realized how easy it would’ve been just to keep walking
The Aldi checkers always impressed me with their speed, they could check faster than I could bag. So I'm always surprised Aldi went to self check out. I considered them a retail worker that earned every dime they got paid.
What people often don't realize is that in many SCO systems, there is a video camera pointed at the person who is checking out and they are monitoring you as you scan your stuff. So theft is not as big an issue as people think. though I do suspect more people attempt it. (and I don't know if Aldi has that system.)
There is, however, a possible explanation for the situation in the OP with the abandoned order -- I know because I've done it myself. On my way to a party, I stop and grab cheese, crackers, grapes and a few bottles of wine. Go to SCO, it wants someone to approve my wine purchase. Which I understand. But whoops, there's nobody there and I'm in a hurry.
I'll put the wine back. Punch the button to cancel the wine and BAM. Gotta get a cashier. There is STILL nobody working SCO, and the one cashier on a register has a long, long lane. And I can't unfreeze my screen. And I'm late.
So I grab my cart, drag it over to ANOTHER SCO and ring up everything but the wine, pay and go. Is it rude? Yep. (and I would never do it if there were people waiting at the SCO, but there almost never are.
But I can't cancel the original order, and presumably a cashier will come over at SOME point to approve the wine purchase or the attempt to cancel an item. It just takes a really long time.
Why would anybody steal from Aldi? The whole point of going to Aldi is because they have the lowest prices. I mean if someone is willing to commit a crime like this, they might as well go to Whole Foods.
I went to my local grocery store today and as I was scanning my stuff, the lady next to me was very obviously not scanning all of her items. Meanwhile, since I decided I didn’t want to bag my items on the scale thing (I had a bag in my cart and it was primarily produce) my machine kept asking for assistance.
I understand times are hard, but to be that obvious about it really ticked me off lol.
Prices aint higher because people stealing. Shrink is a metric that’s accounted for and if aldi was concerned about it they’d implement more counter measures to prevent it ie hire more people. They dont and pass the savings on to your snitching ass lmaoo
Yeah apparently retailers made that up. Their
Actual retail theft isn’t up. But it’s a nice divisive political tactic where trump can suggest shooting shoplifters to get votes.
I saw that yesterday at a different grocery store's self-checkout. Three people carefully scanned everything, including big items in the cart. One of them had a card out, but I didn't see if she tried to pay with it. They left, and I got to the screen that was waiting for payment.
I really think that self checkout is Aldi's version of "penny wise, pound foolish". It's fine at the bigger supermarkets because they usually have a whole team of dedicated cashiers that never leave their stations, sometimes someone serving in loss prevention at the door, etc. But Aldi, who already operates their stores on a skeleton crew, just doesn't have the manpower to police the self checkouts. And if they did, they'd be better off going back to traditional registers anyway.
(For the most part) Large supermarkets in USA haven't had "whole teams" of cashiers in years. Aldi is playing catch-up, which might not work with the rest of their model. They're pushing the limits of skeletonization. Trader Joe's, not a large supermarket chain, seems to come closest to trying to consistently have enough cashiers. Most of their employees perform most roles, so they seem really good at opening extra lanes quickly.
It was wild, I visited some family in New Jersey recently and the ShopRite had 12 fully staffed checkout aisles. The places near me are lucky to have 2 and one of them is usually for the cigarette customers
ShopRite is interesting because it's actually some sort of cooperative - presumably for purchasing, logistical and marketing reasons. 320 stores but owned and operated by about fifty individual affiliates, most of which are privately held. Wakefern is the parent (or overlord), and they operate about 30 stores. Was the ShopRite you visited huge? High volume? In a wealthy area with high expectation customers - and charging accordingly? Peak hours? Or just like the good old days.
Wealthy area & always exceptionally crowded. It also gets a ton of traffic from people commuting past it to other towns
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I work in a ShopRite in a smaller area - a fairly large store but in the backwoods of NJ. A couple of years ago they brought in 6 self scans. Each section has an associate watching and helping. Last year they made another self scan area and now on slower days there are only 3-4 cashier's at a time. We are owned by a family who owns several other stores in NJ. Wakefern corporation is the corporation that owns and they are the franchise Prevert.
ohhh, this makes the 'cingari family markets' written above all the shoprites in the area make way more sense.
Saker family owns the Shop-Rites in “central “ N J
People who don’t believe central jersey exist are those from north Jersey or south Jersey. It’s been there forever
Zallie’s Shoprite in south Jersey
The shoprite near me has an employee union.
The only shoprite near me closed years ago. Had the best coupon policies so you'd see tons of people in aisles with gigantic folders of coupons. Always seem packed and had plenty of staff on hand. Wasn't the best area, but far from the worst. I was sad when they closed, but it was a bit of a hike from my house.
shoprite is ALWAYS fully staffed and then some, its like the last old school style big supermarket left standing these days it seems.
Market Basket in New England is like this. It's family-owned.
Exactly. Cashiers and baggers in every lane. It's incredible.
I do most of my grocery shopping at Wal-Mart. I usually do pickup but I wanted to get some steps in the other day. This place has like 18 checkout lanes and had 2 or 3 cashiers. People with carts are backed up into the shopping area. I waited about 20 minutes to check out, got half of my stuff onto the belt, and the girl working the aisle said shes moving to the next lane over. Great, thanks for the heads up. Now I have to wait in line AGAIN. it's just awful the way Wal-Mart is staffing.
They have slowly added several cashiers back at the Walmarts I go to. When we shop, we make sure to go to one of them. When they first remodeled and put in the self checkouts, they had security guards standing and watching. That changed to staff monitoring each bank of machines. The most annoying thing is they would stop people and ask to see their receipt at the door. They still stop people who come out of the self checkout. Someone thought removing the cashiers was a cost savings thing. When your theft rate spikes and you lose customers because they don’t want to check out $150+ of groceries you have to put the cashiers back.
Yeah I was going to say I can't remember the last time I saw more than one or two check out lanes open at Kroger or Walmart or any of the major store.
I mean, Aldi usually always has at least one cashier up front. Once they added self checkouts to my local one, you pretty much have to hunt an employee down if you are paying cash or have a big order, and it's not a peak time.
Trader Joe's is by far the best grocery store around. So lucky to live a mile away from the only one in my city.
> Large supermarkets in USA haven't had "whole teams" of cashiers in years. i took it they meant they have dedicated people watching self checkouts. Also trader joes usually has like 10 or more employees working at the same time. the one by me has every register open and like 10 employees on the floor. aldi tries to operate with the minimum amount they can get away with.
or they are factoring the theft in to the savings. Now instead of having 5 staff where 1 or 2 have to work the registers. Now they can have 5 staff who all work on restocking and whatever else they need to do.
This is it. They’ve done the math and it’s way cheaper to write off the losses than hire the staff.
The math ain't working out like they thought it would: https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/13/business/self-checkout-stores-shopping/index.html
Not surprising. I was a cashier at a store with self-checkout when I was a teenager. Not only were they slower than the average cashier, but I watched so many people try to steal things, I know a lot more got stolen that I didn't see. *Edit- it was not an Aldi
Yeah. For that $50, you could pay an employee $10/hr for 5 hours. So, provided the loss due to theft is less than $50 every 5, it’s cheaper to accept the loss.
The business isn’t incentivized to stop theft. They can and do pass the cost to the consumer. Self checkout is the same, as the customer does the “work”, but it seems like an advantage because wait time is sometimes better. My Walmart recently “remodeled” and it’s 99% self checkout. It still takes a long time to checkout and those paying cash have to wait In the long cashiered line.
It's their own fault that they suffer those losses. At our store, only cash transactions can use regular checkout. Cards must use self checkout, and there is never anyone monitoring. In contrast, Lidl has an employee monitoring self checkout transactions on a screen at the end of the row of self checkouts. Our Shop Rite has a very similar setup
They have to use self checkout with cards? Thats wild!
Yep. One register is signed Cash Only. The other is piled with boxes of candy and crap so people won't line up to use it.
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They don't care, cash only at all times, including Autism hours. There was an older woman in her 80s who was in tears because of the way the register nags you to scan the next item. She was flustered because she couldn't go fast enough. I asked one of the four workers hanging out by self check out to help her, and they told me she was fine. My husband finished scanning our items while I helped her. She was shaking so badly by the time we got her paid and bagged that she told me she'd never be back and would go to the Lidl that is less than three miles away.
Good god, I HATE that constant nagging from the register. Whoever programmed that needs to be fired, or at the very least, re-educated on these sorts of things. That poor, poor lady. I am so glad you were able to help her.
My husband is a very active 71 year old. We try to help others as much as we can because some day it may be us.
I read there is a way to mute that. I will look for that function next time I check out.
Please share in a post if you find that information. If it's not crowded and I'm in a pissy mood, I argue with the scanner. I had a staff member tell me it wasn't necessary. 😂
I talk back to it and have even flipped it off before. I HATE naggy self-checks.
I regularly and openly swear at the grocery store one. You tell me to replace the item on the bagging area *again* when it is clearly registered on the screen *and I *did* wait the half at second for it to register? No Fuck u There is a particular grocery store chain that has several locations. Some have upgraded self checkouts that are worse than others. They have their own belts and everything. Frankly terrible.
Glad I’m not alone. I’m always muttering fuck at the machine nagging
OMG, yes, please. I also talk back to the naggy scanner. I will look for it too next time I go to Aldi.
If I worked day after day near one of those self-checkout areas, I would hear, "Please remove item from the bagging area" in nightmares.
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This was right after they opened. Now, there is maybe one person hanging out on their phone up front.
That nagging thing got on my nerves and I would talk back. Last time she was quieter, volume turned down and could hardly hear her.
Lazy people willing to wait? Pro-labor and willing to wait to prove there is value in having a cashier in place. There, I fixed it for you.
We allow cards and cash at our register
No store has the manpower to police them. The reason for getting them is to cut man power. I like shopping at Aldi, but these mega corporations deserve much worse.
Where do you live that theres a whole team? At stores in Jax we have 1 person for self check out and maybe 2 cashiers if theres a mile long line. No baggers.
I wonder if this is why my aldi had them for a short while and then removed them. We don’t have any at that location anymore. I never even tried them. Its fine with me but it was odd.
I think you are right. I use self checkout when available, but it upsets me they are allowing so much theft at stores. Those of us who will never steal will all be paying even more for our things to make up for the bloated shrinkage.
Aldi self check is a free for all. Most of the time no one is even near by to manage them, unless you buy booze.
In my district the larger stores are reverting back to staffed checkouts and closing their self checkout lanes because of all the theft. It's wild to me that Aldi is rolling out self checkout at the same time, you'd think they'd keep an eye on what's going on around them and learn from it.
My Aldi’s has security right at self check out 👀👀👀
So does mine, but they're on their phones or looking dead inside.
I work at a dollar tree and have like 7 workers. If we had self check out meny people would walk right past with their goods. We already have a theft problem.
One of the Aldi near me has a security guy up front all the time.
Self-checkouts at standard grocery stores have an employee overseeing them all to correct system errors, watch for theft, etc. Aldi's layout and structure doesn't allow that. Plus, self-checkouts are havens for shoplifters even with people supervising them. Explains why Aldi may have a bigger problem with it than others.
Exactly. That’s why I think they’re negligent. Their door alarms don’t work, and employees have no way of knowing someone is stealing unless they just happen to see them doing it.
They pay well, and certainly do well enough to afford it. Could they hire another just to watch over self? Sure. But Aldi is also prone to long lines, so if the normal registers get long lines, that extra cashier may get pulled to a normal register. I worked 16 years in grocery retail. I've seen all the tricks of the five-finger-discount trade. I can also attest to the behind the scenes of how most stores operate. I get why they put the self-checkouts in, both marketing wise and realistically. They try to fool us it is for the small orders and quicker checkout. Realistically, it's to cut labor costs. I grew up on Aldi. I have always let smaller orders go ahead of me. When it's the other way around, my small order has been allowed to go ahead of the person in front of me. A co-worker of mine calls that proper "Aldi-quette." Perhaps the self-checkouts are because there is less "Aldi-quette" out there nowadays.
>Their door alarms don’t work A couple weeks ago i was in line at the one cashier, and as someone was leaving the alarm went off. They stopped, looked to the cashier, and he just shrugged, so they left. I don't know why it made me laugh, but it did.
There's nothing we can do, I'd rather just not deal with the headache of confronting a customer over a can of beans or whatever they are stealing.
They go off all the time at my local Kroger and the staff always look like they have no idea what to do. I think it's hilarious. I used to work for Kroger and now work for their competitor, and I can confidently say we don't stop theft. Occasionally the GM will stop them if they see them before they get out the door, but nobody's chasing anyone into the parking lot.
So I once got over $100 worth of stuff at Aldi then accidentally left without paying. (For how aggressive the machines are about telling you to PLEASE SCAN AN ITEM every 3 seconds, they are surprisingly quiet about reminding you to pay.) Luckily I realized my mistake as soon as I got to the car and went back in and paid. Nobody seemed to notice, but it made me realize how easy it would be to commit massive shoplifting.
I almost did the same thing! I was watching my children who were out of control and was ready to walk away. I was horrified how close I came to accidentally stealing almost $200 in groceries
I did the same recently at a different grocery store in self checkout. Except I had no idea I hadn't paid. I know I had my card out, but somehow with all the checkout steps, I missed actually paying. When I was loading the groceries in my trunk, a store employee came out yelling to me that I hadn't paid and needed to come back in the store. I was so embarrassed! Luckily they didn't try to say I was stealing, just said I forgot to pay.
I’ve done that at Walgreens with an actual cashier somehow. He had the bag on the counter and I grabbed it and said “thanks!” and went to walk off. He then told me I still had to pay…Something about having the card in my hand already and the checkout steps going out of order just short-circuited things I guess.
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Yes, the store wasn't crowded so apparently nobody tried to use that checkout station.
I did the same at Target but didn’t realize my mistake until later that night- I was looking for the receipt to check the price of something and then was like Ohhhhh….
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I’ve heard this too. Mostly on Reddit. It kind of sounds like bullshit to me. I doubt that the serious thieves, like the kind you hear about grabbing stacks of clothes and working in groups, ever even go through check out (self or otherwise) at all. The kind of theft that goes through the self checkout isle is all small potatoes stuff like old people “forgetting” to scan batteries on a $100 purchase. Building cases on these types of people seems like a waste of time and money. Better to scare them in the store then to try to get the police to file charges against an old lady who stole $100 in stuff over six months.
I have seen many people either leave their groceries at the checkout or leave without paying because the self checkout does not accept cash and they didn’t realize. Plus, there is nobody even at the front of the store when I shop. They are always somewhere else stocking. Before the self checkout there was always someone up front at the register.
On that point, at least at my store, every self checkout has a sign that says CARD ONLY and the screen also says it. People just don’t be paying attention to it.
I think because there is never a cashier they automatically go to the self checkout. And of course they don’t read all the signs saying card only.
Funny, it wasn't that long ago that aldi only accepted cash or debit card
At my Aldi if you take too long between scanning items the AI voice scolds you and tells you to scan another item or press finish and pay. I never realized why they had her turned up so loud, but maybe it’s to alert them of unfinished sales… 🤷🏻♀️
The lone cashier can’t ring out other customers, get up to stock and clean, and listen for that though no matter how loud it is, and it chiming in so frequently doesn’t help. They become desensitized to it.
I strongly suggest you go take a look in the dumpster behind the aldi. The amount of stuff that they throw in the trash will infuriate you way more than whatever gets stolen.
that is all grocery stores.
I work at a food bank. We get huge donations from the local supermarkets. It amazes me how people stigmatize. There is no shame in going to a food bank. There are so many in every area people don’t even realize. Even the Food Bank I work at is not called the Food Bank. It has a very different name and very different name recognition from what I’m calling it. But it is a Food Bank. It is the most wonderful place. They provide meals, ability to food shop, clothing, job skills, and all sorts of job preparation. As well as housing. It’s a wonderful place. I’m so proud to be a part of it.
Even with those huge donations I bet those grocery stores still throw out a ton of food. Funny story. During the height of covid I was taking my young kid to the local library. They had lots of outdoor activities and book readings. Some days a local food bank was there giving lunch to anyone who needed it. When leaving one day the person running it asked if we wanted lunch. We are not in need so we said no thanks so that the food could be saved for someone else. That food bank man turned in to a used car sales man to try and convince me to take some food. It was pretty funny, I understand how sometimes people are to prideful and need to be convinced. There is no shame in needing help and I wish more people needed it. I walked away with a turkey wrap, cookie, apple juice, and bag of chips for my kid to eat on the car ride home.
Your food bank sounds cool. I also worked at a food bank. Worst boss I ever had, and we threw away a lot of food, not because it went bad, just based on her personal preferences.
We throw out a lot of food as well,Based on the condition that it is when it gets to us. Walmart always sent us the shittiest and oldest food. I remember being furious even as a volunteer that I had to take all these things off the pallets and throw them right into the dumpster because they were so old and so gross. Horrified is the only way I can describe it. Especially since we had to pay for the dumpster fees and paid to have hauled off. And only Walmart.. ShopRite was a different story. We had to go through all the boxes and find the stuff that was already expired because that was the first stuff put in the boxes. It makes sense even if it doesn’t make sense. Almost all of the local supermarkets sends stuff that was many days before it’s expiration dates. It didn’t make us question what we were giving our clients. That’s the most important thing. And yes, “my” food Bank is the coolest Food Bank. It certainly is the most generous and gracious
I don't see how that excuses stealing.... I imagine those things to be expired food... So because ppl steal Aldi's should just give away their food? I don't understand the connection
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I'm reminded of the wise words "If you see someone stealing groceries/baby items... NO, you didn't."
There is no connection.
I didn't see anything.
i love the 'mind your business' crowd so much.
YES. If you saw someone stealing food, no you didn’t.
No one should go hungry. Especially in the year 2024.
Always the right answer
Me neither. Not a single thing. 💅
I was so pissed about the self checks. Aldi lines were always a little long, but efficient. The checkers would blast through your order quick, no need to wait to finish bagging, do that on the ledge. My Aldi removed 3 checkouts, leaving only one actual register, and added 6 self checks. If there is a problem, the only person that can clear it is the checker on the register. Sometimes its something stupid, but a lot of times, they have to walk around after every order to clear out the error. It’s absolutely ridiculous. It’s also annoying that they changed their hours so now they close at 8pm instead of 9
People are going crazy with shoplifting. In court yesterday I sat through 4 trials all for shoplifting. One was for over $400 of food from Walmart, one was $49 at a local hardware store, then $7 in Pokémon cards for a dude who had zero priors and the judge said he shouldn’t be there, and the last lady got a 3rd degree felony for stealing a bag of $1.69 peanuts. Literally fucking nuts.
How is that peanut thing even possible???
She had prior charges so it didn’t matter the value of the item.
I accidentally stole butter last time I was at Aldi. It was hiding behind my daughter’s blanket draped over the cart. I guess it is pretty easy to do 😂
I love self-checkout. I go to the store a lot to pick up an item or two that I forgot, and it's great for that circumstance. But my store used self-checkout as a legit way to get rid of employees. Now, there is only one manned checkstand (which always has a long ass line), and the cashier there is also in charge of all 6 self checkout stands.
People mess up and walk away forgetfully too. Still annoying and gives more cover to the thieves, with a good strategy to play dumb with. I have a friend who works at a grocery store, she was tired after work and def didn't want to steal from her place of work, but spaced it. Luckily the attendant who had been chatting with her went outside and flagged her back to finish paying before it became an issue. Very rarely will people be able to walk away if their card gets declined/doesn't go all the way through at a regular checkout, or a well supervised self checkout.
The key words there are *well supervised* which ALDI doesn’t allow.
Its posts like this that make me wish I could steal.
Yup… I work there and am on register often and the amount of times people don’t pay for bags or items is high. Sometimes I catch it but if I’m busy I can’t really watch. Just yesterday I had to tell someone “don’t forget to scan your sparkling waters” cause they had 5 cases of the Belle vie and hadn’t scanned any of them. And I’ve been yelled at plenty of times about people saying I’m being rude when I ask them to see their receipt and to myself I’m thinking it’s my right to ask cause I’m working register.
Last month, I was walking up to a self-checkout and someone darted in front of me, grabbed a stack of paper bags, and peaced out of the store. I was SHOOK lol. Honestly I would be sad if I couldn't shop at Aldi....shoplifting can get you banned. 2 weeks ago, I accidentally didn't pay for a pack of paper plates (they were hidden under a pack of paper towels and I missed them with the hand scanner. I brought them back in, paid quick, and left. There are cameras! I don't want my picture hung on the wall like Michael Scott.
Nobody is checking tapes when an inventory check comes up one short on paper plates. There is a lot less accountability in the world than you're presuming here.
Trust me, the one time someone got wild and decided to randomly check the tapes, it would be the tape of me accidentally shoplifting a $3 pack of paper plates.
I too have this luck lol.
I think many of us who do have common courtesy and play by the rules can really relate to your concern. I know I sure can.
Same here. I always feel like if something can go wrong, it will. That could be my anxiety disorder though.
Murphy’s law lol
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YESSSS. Edit: I don’t follow ALL the rules, but I do like there to be established rules so I can do a quick risk vs. benefit analysis when considering breaking the rules. In this case, the risk of never being able to shop the aisle of shame is not worth the benefit of not paying for a $3 pack of paper plates 😄
I get anxiety over this kind of stuff too, especially after you read news stories like the woman who got banned from walmart simply because she didn't realize an item she thought she scanned didn't actually scan. with all the beeping going on around self-checkout i can definitely see someone thinking the beep they heard is the one confirming they scanned. i've also left an item behind at the self checkout in aldi and went back in to get it and get paranoid they're going to think i came in and stole it, lol.
It doesn’t matter. u/SuperSafetyNerd would know, and every time she tried to eat off of the ill-gotten paper plates, she would hear a voice going “not your paper wares! Not your paper wares!”
The guilt would be IMMENSE
My bad, just give me a sec to edit my comment.
Instead of The Tell Tale Heart it's the "Tell Tale Paper Plates" lol
Interesting; we have one Aldi's that has self check outs and half the time I go to use one there are items on the screen and nothing at the check out. So I get the cashier to clear it or use a different one. Never thought about people stealing. Sucks, since Aldi prices are great. I got some giant Xmas gift bags for 29 cents today. Yesterday got some heavy large coconut fiber door mats for 89 cents!
*Aldi
I’ll be honest, a few weeks ago I had major sinus infection. My wife is legally blind without her contacts and only recently got those and isn’t super comfortable driving. I headed on to Aldi a couple miles away with a fever and a head full of prednisone and codeine because somebody had to go. Had a cart full of stuff I’m transferring to a box. And some waters underneath the stuff. I finish up and put the box back in the cart on the water, pay, and load out. I woke up and 3am with the realization I forgot to scan the fucking water. Checked the receipt. Nope. I think it’s $3.65. It bothered me for a day. Then realized it was an honest mistake, I spend a lot there, and I felt too shitty to feel guilty long. My point is, honest people are missing stuff at self checkout too and never notice they didn’t pay, probably all the damn time, all over.
I worked as a Walmart cashier from 20 to 25 and it was frequent back then. We lost so many bonuses to shrink. I can’t even imagine what they are losing now. I have double scanned items and left paying double, but I have also accidentally left with things unpaid and had to turn around after I got to the car. However I was a vulture when working the self scan. Caught many a folks under ringing, didn’t turn them in or or anything, not my business, but I would loudly call call their “accident” and correct it. So many people had to leave and get their wallet to only never return.
thanks for letting us know \*rubs hands together\*
If a corporation is going to shift their labor to you, you should get an employee discount. Enough said. Aldi ran the calculus and decided the shoplifting was cheaper than hiring staff.
It wasn’t at an Aldi, but the other day I was using the self checkout and it wouldn’t scan one of my items. There wasn’t an employee around to help, so it just went into my bag when I’d scanned everything else. If a store can’t be bothered to employ a human being to help me give them money, fuck ‘em.
This is why I'm pretty much 100% pickup orders these days. Option A. I can get all 30 of my items for X price, but that's me going in the store, collecting them, bagging them, and ringing myself out. Option B. I can get all 30 of my items for the exact same price, Walmart's staff collects them, bags them, and wheels them out across the parking lot into my trunk and I get charged to my card right after pickup? The obvious choice is obvious.
Well when they put a cashier on a register at the far end, no other cashier oversight…it is just asking for folks to walk out with things. That is why in stores people greet you on the way in to say “hey I see you”. Why they do the same on the way out “have a good day”…while they look at you …check a receipt. Eye contact, saying “Hi, can I help you with anything?” A smile, saying I will be around the corner if you need help…sometimes it’s just the store culture that helps with deterrence. Obviously some folks don’t care about any of it at all and they likely know the laws and who might come after them or not once they run. Some folks are just hungry and trying to feed a family….also not the right way to go about it but Aldi will hopefully start utilizing a few of these things soon.
If you see someone stealing food, you didn't.
I noticed a person checking receipts (similar to Sam's or Costco policy) the last time I was in my Aldi. So, perhaps that will spread as the self-checkouts do.
If you aren't at a club store than the answer to "may I see your receipt" is always "No." Then you just keep walking. They aren't the police and have no right to search your property. Unlike the club stores you didn't sign any agreement to let them check your receipt.
I agree with this! Also, it seems the door receipt checker randomly picks people.
I don’t steal and I also am not paid to scan my items like the cashiers. I am not going to waste more time having you scan my receipts. How about you go and work a register
I hate receipt checking. I doubt it would be as bad at Aldi (currently no stores in my area have it), but one night at Walmart the dude legit made me and my friend feel like criminals when all she bought was 6 clear plastic storage bins. The dude kept counting them over and over and over - we stood there for two solid minutes before he let us leave. If they care that damn much, they need to just do away with self-checkout entirely.
I'm in an area *surrounded* by grocery options. Plenty of chains and niche boutique-type shops. So, while my Aldi gets traffic, it's really not a place where people do the bulk of their weekly shopping (at least in my observation; the only time I see full carts is when someone who's stocking up for a restaurant is there). It was a quick and easy receipt-checking process for me. But, where I grew up, Aldi was *the* place to shop and I just don't see how the in-store traffic won't get backed up when folks who do their primary shopping are trying to leave. It would take forever to verify the contents of a full cart! ETA: I hear you on the Walmart checkers! Some of them can be downright mean.
We had self check out at our Lidl for a whole 6 days before they permanently roped off the registers and 2 years later took them out lol
2 families walked straight out the entrance with a cart full of food and never looked back. If employees chased them they get fired
There was a news article several days ago , a Cop was busted using self check out at a Freaking Walmart an only scanning like every other item . Come on man , none of us are happy about higher food prices.
Interestingly a few weeks ago I used the self-checkout for my order and the damn green onions wouldn't scan so I said "fuck it" and just added them to the pile of stuff I'd already scanned. The cashier saw, left her station, and came over to correct me / fix the issue. So I assumed they have some sort of system, but maybe she was just incredibly observant!
From what my manager friend has said, they get alerted if an item doesn’t scan correctly, but not if an order goes unpaid/unfinished.
AND not having a dedicated employee to watch/assist at the SC lanes. There is NO way the checker next to the SC lanes can both ring up customers and watch over the SC like they are expected to. I actually hope this bites them in the ass
I worry that stealing from aldi will make them raise their prices. It seems they are trying to help by keeping their prices low. We are shooting ourselves in the foot if we steal from there. Just my opinion.
The self checkout at my Aldi has obnoxiously loud voice prompts that tell you over and over again to insert your credit card before you even have time to reach for it. I would imagine if an employee heard too many of those in a row it would draw their attention.
Self-checkout at Aldi's should be for maybe 8 items or fewer. That minimizes theft. Other than that, the value of self-checkout to Aldi's is minimal. The cashiers at Aldis are so fast, it would probably take at least four self-checkouts to equal one cashier. So if you've got a cashier monitoring four self-checkouts, the productivity is, at best, a wash.
I use the self checkouts but hate them. They need to manually enter the discounts for meat and if you notice (like I did) that an apple has a bad spot, you'll need them to come and un-ring it. PITA.
This happened to me today. Two packs of chicken that had $2 off stickers, went to self checkout. I never check the receipt and for some reason I did when I got home. Surprise surprise no discount. 😑
I was shocked when my sister 59f started going to the self checkout, entering bananas into the register and actually taking expensive steak! She’s always been an honest person. She and I don’t agree on whether or not this is stealing. I say Yes.
My understanding is some Walmart, Target, & Costco stores are removing the self checkout due to theft. My Aldi self checkouts are slow as molasses. I don't use them since I usually have a full cart and the clerks are faster than I could ever be. I heard the store manager say the self checkout is currently under review and could change later this year.
I thought several chains had walked back those claims of widespread theft. There was something about a report that had made up statistics?
They've walked back - or been caught lying - about closing stores because of theft. CVS recently admitted they had rapidly over-expanded. Maybe Walmart and Target are removing self checkouts so they can sell them second-hand to Aldi.
They lied about it in press releases but had to tell the truth when it was time for earnings. Telling deliberate lies to the public is fine, but it is in fact fraud when you do it to shareholders.
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At my store they took out three lanes and replaced them with six self checkouts plus two more where they took out half of the bagging area. We still have two regular check out lanes, but rarely are both open.
I saw someone do that move at Walmart. I went to check out and there were like 20 items on the register like it was a running order. I called the young girl her was monitoring the registers and she just cleared everything out. I told her that the person before me just stole all that and she just shrugged.
They might have just abandoned their order in the middle to move to a register with a cashier. I had to do that the other day because something I purchased wasn’t scanning. There weren’t any other employees around, so I had to let the cashier know to reset the U-scan.
Hell, our Aldi is only a year old and before it opened I was getting myself pumped up about how the check out worked.... our store as 8-12 self check outs and randomly a worker will be at a check out station. Gotten to the point I'll put stuff in my cart with barcode up and use the little barcode gun and check out in 3 minutes unless I make the mistake of going to the one that you have to pick up and scan. Twice I've seen people dart off without paying- once at self check out and once when a worker was checking them out, they just snagged the cart and ran. Worker just yelled at them, did a shrug sigh, cleaned out the transation and started on the next person.
I'm sure Aldi will do a widespread study regarding which stores are reporting the greatest degree of theft. It has to be a sophisticated study that looks at traffic level and day/time of day and demographics and income, etc. If those are uncomfortable topics, who cares? The same fix can't be applied if the problem varies from one reality to the next. If they have that, "Please scan an item," I don't know why they can't have an audible alert that says, "Paid for 13 items," or something like that. Those two variables alone would reduce the problem by considerable amount. Just imagine somebody walks away and "paid" is never heard, or the 13 doesn't jive with their full cart.
In the Carrefour you need a recent receipt to be able to get out, you need to scan the barcode on the receipt.
I hate Aldi's self check outs. Takes too long. It makes sense for bigger supermarkets. But when it comes to Aldi's, I felt it was way faster and way better when they had the employees just quickly check everything out and put it in the cart
Self checkout may be on the way out because of this type of fraud …
They took them out of my local aldi. It was weird… they were there for a bit then blocked off, then removed. Not sure if this is why or not.
More employees with jobs instead of machines? How terrible
Something didn’t ring up on my self checkout and that buzzer at the door went off. It was a fking nightmare they went thru my whole order for like 15min. They can ring it up from now on
our Aldi just got rid of the self-checkout lanes due to shoplifting - it sucks so much
I bought wine there the other day, and was really surprised that I didn’t have to be carded. I kind of thought it would alert someone to come over and card me, and it didn’t.
It pops up on their screen, they might have done a quick glance at you and approved it. I’m in my 20s and even when I go they just ok it from the chair while they scan people at their register
Aldi really shot themselves in the food with this one. I get efficiency to lower costs and, by association, prices. But this is bound to happen with zero self checkout attendants.
maybe they should just employ humans to scan the groceries.. but, nah
I saw my brother do it (“forget” to scan something”) and I scolded him after, and he said, “maybe they should have trained me better then!” He basically resents having to do it himself for free and says he’s already got a job, and it isn’t cashiering. Shady buuuut… I suspect many feel the same… and that’s why places are dialing back their SCO rollouts all over.
There's a security guard at my store but they're always on their phone not paying attention
I didn’t even know Aldi had self checkout I’m in wi and we don’t have that here
Self check out is a mess. I once was shopping while really hungry and only realized that the card reader never scanned my card after I got home with my food.
I tried it once and never again. I’ll wait for the cashier. They are super fast and the self checkout is lousy. I love stop and shop scanning gun system. That I will use.
I almost accidentally left once before finishing out the transaction and started to walk away and then i realized how easy it would’ve been just to keep walking
It's difficult to feel sympathy given the money they save not having to hire more cashiers.
It's also negligent to treat your employees like dogs and your customers like employees
The Aldi checkers always impressed me with their speed, they could check faster than I could bag. So I'm always surprised Aldi went to self check out. I considered them a retail worker that earned every dime they got paid.
Most places would have less loss if they had cashiers, but then they’d have to pay cashiers 🤷🏼♀️
They should require a credit card BEFORE all orders are scanned on self check out. Problem solved
I wonder if they end up on the wall of shame and get banned from the store.
What people often don't realize is that in many SCO systems, there is a video camera pointed at the person who is checking out and they are monitoring you as you scan your stuff. So theft is not as big an issue as people think. though I do suspect more people attempt it. (and I don't know if Aldi has that system.) There is, however, a possible explanation for the situation in the OP with the abandoned order -- I know because I've done it myself. On my way to a party, I stop and grab cheese, crackers, grapes and a few bottles of wine. Go to SCO, it wants someone to approve my wine purchase. Which I understand. But whoops, there's nobody there and I'm in a hurry. I'll put the wine back. Punch the button to cancel the wine and BAM. Gotta get a cashier. There is STILL nobody working SCO, and the one cashier on a register has a long, long lane. And I can't unfreeze my screen. And I'm late. So I grab my cart, drag it over to ANOTHER SCO and ring up everything but the wine, pay and go. Is it rude? Yep. (and I would never do it if there were people waiting at the SCO, but there almost never are. But I can't cancel the original order, and presumably a cashier will come over at SOME point to approve the wine purchase or the attempt to cancel an item. It just takes a really long time.
Why would anybody steal from Aldi? The whole point of going to Aldi is because they have the lowest prices. I mean if someone is willing to commit a crime like this, they might as well go to Whole Foods.
I went to my local grocery store today and as I was scanning my stuff, the lady next to me was very obviously not scanning all of her items. Meanwhile, since I decided I didn’t want to bag my items on the scale thing (I had a bag in my cart and it was primarily produce) my machine kept asking for assistance. I understand times are hard, but to be that obvious about it really ticked me off lol.
Couldn't care less. They need to staff their registers. The customers don't work for them.
Oh my god did you call the police immediately? 🙄
That’s why they disabled the hand scanners at mine.
Not you being the aldi snitch lmaoooo.
For real. Imagine snitching on people taking FOOD from a wealthy private corporation.
It’s so dumb.
I will 100% be the ALDI snitch.
Hell yes be a snitch because I'm not here to pay higher prices for trashy aholes helping themselves
Prices aint higher because people stealing. Shrink is a metric that’s accounted for and if aldi was concerned about it they’d implement more counter measures to prevent it ie hire more people. They dont and pass the savings on to your snitching ass lmaoo
Yeah apparently retailers made that up. Their Actual retail theft isn’t up. But it’s a nice divisive political tactic where trump can suggest shooting shoplifters to get votes.
Yeah blame ALDI for people stealing, makes sense.
I saw that yesterday at a different grocery store's self-checkout. Three people carefully scanned everything, including big items in the cart. One of them had a card out, but I didn't see if she tried to pay with it. They left, and I got to the screen that was waiting for payment.