It appears some people have been taking Aldi’s ‘just walk out’ store too literally, forgetting they should have sufficient funds in their account to pay. Which might explain why the supermarket has started charging £10 to shoppers’ cards before they can even get in.

There are two ways to gain access to the discounter’s ‘Shop & Go’ store in Greenwich. One is to download the app and register a payment card, after it which it will generate a QR code for you to scan at an entry barrier. The other is to tap your card at the barrier.

In either case, the idea is that you pick up what you want, with AI-powered cameras taking note, and then ‘just walk out’ – after which payment is taken from your card.

However, as revealed by The Grocer today, Aldi has begun taking a £10 ‘pre-authorisation’ payment before the entry barrier opens.

In the case of shoppers using the app, the charge is taken before the QR code is generated. For those tapping their card, it is taken at that moment.

If they don’t pick up £10 worth of shopping, they get a refund, but it will typically take between five and seven days including weekends, or longer depending on their card issuer. “The timing of such reversal is controlled by your card issuer (usually your bank or credit card company), and so in the event of any queries, you should contact your card issuer,” Aldi explains in its T&Cs.

Aldi adds friction to frictionless shop

It is not the first checkout-free store to charge shoppers before letting them in. A Market Express supermarket at London’s Excel Centre, powered by Amazon’s Just Walk Out tech, also requires a £10 ‘pre-authorisation’ payment. An FAQ section on the Excel website explains that it “confirms valid payment cards and avoids failed transactions”.

Another Amazon-powered store, selling interval beers and snacks at the SSE Arena in Belfast, takes a whopping £30.

Aldi’s explanation is that it wants to make shopping as easy as it can be and “ensure shoppers have the best experience possible”. It says refunds will usually clear within 48 hours, depending on the card provider.

But turning ‘just walk out’ into ‘just walk out at least £10 worse off’ is hardly aligned with the technology’s supposed aim of making shopping frictionless. And taking £10 from a shopper who might only have wanted a £2 sandwich, and could be carefully managing a daily budget at the end of their monthly payment cycle, is not making shopping easier for them.

If they can’t afford to be £10 down for a few days then they shouldn’t go in, one might think. But the amount being taken is not made clear until it is too late.

Following an update to the app earlier this month, anyone opening it is immediately greeted by a ‘get entry code’ button. One press and the money is taken from their available balance – and they won’t know how much until they check their account. The only warning in the app is smaller text beneath the button saying “We will authorise a small amount to validate your card. This will be used towards your final payment or refunded.”

If, for whatever reason, they should press the button again a short while later (perhaps to verify that they are not losing their mind and it really did happen the first time) £10 will be taken again, even if they haven’t been anywhere near the store.

In other words, the app will charge the user again for generating a second QR code, even if they have not used the first.

For anyone tapping their card to enter, a screen at the barrier informs them: “We will authorise £10 to verify your card” – after they have tapped.

The process was demonstrated in a LinkedIn post last week by Aldi’s tech partner Aifi, with a video that could hardly have demonstrated the shortcomings better if it had been intended to do so. It shows the £10 worse-off shopper picking up a single 99p bottle of orange juice before leaving again. Let’s hope they don’t do that every lunchtime, or they could get a shock when they check their bank balance at the end of the week.

Keeping it simple?

Aldi might not be the first to introduce such a charge, but this is not a store serving a captive market at a venue – it’s a discount supermarket on Greenwich High Road.

And it’s hard to believe there are not better ways. Pay-at-pump machines on supermarket forecourts authorise £99 on motorists’ cards, but it’s a temporary holding fee and payment is deducted only for the fuel dispensed.

Aldi’s one and only Shop & Go store is something of an anomaly for the discounter. It opened in 2022, at a time of uncertainty over how popular checkout-free shopping could get, with Amazon setting its sights on 260 stores in two years.

Three years later, the technology has yet to persuade shoppers in meaningful numbers. Amazon is nowhere near its target, with about 20 UK stores. Like Aldi, it added a contactless payment option when it became apparent downloading an app was an added friction not all shoppers wanted.

Aifi boasts in its LinkedIn post that Aldi’s Shop & Go store has sold over 10 million items to date. For a retailer focused on low margins and high volumes, which has been open for three years in a high-footfall part of London, is that impressive?

Shop & Go doesn’t align with Aldi’s ‘discounter DNA’, which dictates everything should be as simple as possible to keep prices low, and so far doesn’t allow the complexity of a loyalty app.

It is also evidently a headache for the discounter to find the best way to manage the technology – we can be sure it would rather not be charging shoppers £10 just to get in. The added friction could be enough for them to just walk away rather than just walk out.

Perhaps Aldi should take it as one friction too many in its own ‘just walk out’ journey too.

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