Aldi has begun taking a £10 deposit from shoppers before they can enter its checkout-free store in Greenwich.
The ‘pre-authorisation’ charge is taken from the customer’s payment card before they can pass through an entry gate, and deducted from the cost of their shop when they leave.
However, if they leave with less than £10 worth of shopping, or nothing at all, they could be waiting several days or longer to get their money back.
Customers are also getting no warning of how much the deposit is going to be before it is taken.
Aldi’s Shop & Go store uses AI-powered cameras to track what customers take from shelves and charges their card after they leave.
To gain access to the ‘just walk out’ store, shoppers must either download the Aldi Shop & Go app and register a payment card or tap their card at the entry gate.
The app generates a QR code which shoppers must scan at the gate. Following an update earlier this month, anyone opening the app is immediately presented with a ‘get entry code’ button, and pressing it instantly leads to £10 being taken from their payment card.
The only warning of how much will be taken is small print under the button saying: “We will authorise a small amount to validate your card.”
For shoppers tapping their card to enter, a screen at the gate informs them a moment after tapping that: “We will authorise £10 to verify your card.”
Aldi’s T&Cs explain it will make a reverse payment if the shop comes to less than £10. However, “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”, the T&Cs say.
It means the refund is likely to take between five and seven days including weekends to clear back into the customer’s account, though it could take longer depending on the card issuer.
An app user who inadvertently presses the button more than once can also be charged £10 multiple times, even if they have not entered the store.
Aldi said the Shop & Go store was constantly evolving to make shopping there as easy as possible. It said keeping the app up to date ensured shoppers received the best experience possible.
It said that in most cases pre-authorisation payments would be returned within 48 hours, dependent on the user’s account provider. This also applies to customers who have generated a QR code via the Shop & Go app but have not made a trip to the store, according to Aldi.
“This store is part of a trial, and we are constantly refining how the technology in place operates, so keeping the app up to date will ensure shoppers have the best experience possible at our Shop & Go store,” said an Aldi spokesperson.
It is not the first checkout-free store to charge shoppers £10 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 says it “confirms valid payment cards and avoids failed transactions”.
Aldi’s sole Shop & Go store opened in 2022, in a period uncertainty over how popular the checkout-free shopping experience could become. It came months after Amazon set a target of opening 260 Just Walk Out grocery stores in the UK within two years.
However, more than three years later the technology has yet to go mainstream. Tesco has four GetGo stores, all featuring a ‘hybrid’ format, meaning shoppers can still use a checkout if they want to.
Amazon halted its planned store rollout in 2022, began adding a card payment option in 2023, and also shuttered some stores. It has about 20 Just Walk Out Amazon Fresh stores, with only one opening last year, in London’s West Hampstead.
Aldi UK & Ireland CEO Giles Hurley told The Grocer in 2023 that its rollout of self-checkouts, rather than more Shop & Go stores, was seen as the “right next step”.
Posting on LinkedIn last week, Aldi’s checkout-free tech partner AiFi said the Shop & Go store had sold over 10 million items to date.
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