Aldi’s Shop and Go stores, an attempt at a cashierless grocery chain in the UK, are facing criticism for requiring a £10 deposit from each entering shopper. Many customers are unaware of the deposit amount, and if they spend less than £10, the refund can take several days to process.
To enter, shoppers must either download the Aldi Shop & Go app and register a payment card or tap their card at the entrance. Those who use the app receive a message upon pressing the entry button: “We will authorise a small amount to validate your card.” According to the Pinnacle Gazette website, shoppers who press the button multiple times before entering may be charged multiple times.
On the other hand, shoppers who tap their card to enter are informed of the charge upfront. A screen display reads: “We will authorise £10 to verify your card.”
“I wouldn’t fault Aldi for authorizing £10 on a consumer’s card as the enter,” said Don Apgar, Director of the Merchants Payment Practice at Javelin Strategy & Research. “That’s part of the tradeoff that the consumer makes in exchange for unattended checkout. Lost or stolen cards, and those that don’t have £10 of purchasing power available, really raise the risk profile for Aldi. In a traditional store, if you’ve bought more than you can pay for, there is a cashier to help remove items from your bill and restock them. The idea is to minimize the probability of that happening.
“However, for debit card users, that authorization means that £10 of their money in the bank is being held and is not available to spend,” he said. “Aldi needs to be sure that these authorization reversals are happening in real time and that consumers’ balances are being restored when appropriate.”
Following Amazon’s Footsteps
Aldi is not the first retailer to hit roadblocks with its no-cashier technology. Shop & Go is patterned after Amazon Go, the no-contact convenience stores established in the U.S. in 2018. At their peak, Amazon operated around 30 of the cashierless stores, but that number has dropped to 16, and the no-checkout option has been eliminated from Amazon Fresh stores.
Amazon struggled to find the right technology for the stores. The initial Just Walk Out system, which tracked shoppers’ purchases via camera and sensor technology, was replaced last year by a smart shopping cart that allows shoppers to scan and check out their groceries. It was later reported that the no-checkout stores were monitored by teams in India who logged what shoppers were buying.
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