Bloody Lidl

Depends on how good the implimentation is. Local Co-op had a couple installed recently, bad implimentation. If you *slightly* lift your bag, to open the top say, when putting a scanned item in the chances are it'll throw a wobbly and ask you to take it out, you do so and it ask you to put it back, then ask you take it out again... Until it's happy it won't let you scan another item. There doesn't appear to be any "settling" timeout to allow for the rapid positive/negative weight changes as an item is placed in the bag.

The proper cashiers can see and hear what is going on and can overide it from their terminal but it's still a PITA. I've given up using them.

Until they removed the self service tills in B&Q it really was a Elfin Safety issue. Put the bag of cement/sand on the low level scales with restricted access which prevented an easy knees bent lift!

This happened to me in Asda a while back. I wrote my details down, put it on the counter, and set off out with my trolley. A guy tried to stop me so I said I've left my details; they could come to my place and count up and then invoice me. All hell broke out. The rest of the queue started to do the same thing. It got chaotic and slightly physical. Finally a manager took over a till and dealt with the queue. As I reached my car another manager came up to me and said, "We have your picture. You will be banned from all Asda shops indefinitely." I told him to f*ck off. It's not like me to be like that but I was riled.

Bill

I often visit friends where their local is a coop supermarket. They installed a self service where you scanned items, then put it on a conveyor belt which took the items through a tunnel and then into one of two packing areas. It was a complete PITA and from my experience using it and watching others not a single customer managed to get a whole shop through without staff intervention. It even used to lock up if you placed the item on the belt at the tunnel entrance rather than 1 inch away from the entrance. On my last visit they had removed the self service facilities. However, it is a fairly rural area and the manned till are ultra slow with customers having a gossip with the cashiers. I'm sure that using a Lidl would be a true culture shock for those using that supermarket.

Seem like a very empty threat! You walk in, fill your trolley, put it on the conveyor belt and then when you reach the checkout the only staff member you have come into contact with dials up a album of pictures, which they definitely do for each customer, and finds you are banned for life.

You leave all the goods on the conveyor belt and walk out.

Lidl in Darwen is a shed. I actually HATE it. My most eventful visit involved me coming out wet with a torn T shirt.

I like a lot of lidl stuff (mainly wine :) ) which when I want I drive

There is a nearer one in Blackburn but the couple of times i've been in there I felt like I needed to be armed*, not Lidl's fault I suppose but the location it's in.

I wouldn't have normally entertained Iceland as the adverts put me off (PR disaster on their part) but we've been ordering online from them and that works very well.

michael adams submitted this idea :

A local shop also uses them, Fultons. They don't have space enough for trolleys.

williamwright has brought this to us :

Like it :-)

It happens that R D S formulated :

They used to do some of the best ready meals available, then they revised their stock some while ago, so I stopped bothering. Things may have improved since then, if I were to go in.

Don't bag up there? Just put everything back in the trolley after finishing scanning and bag up at the car? Lots of self service units are iffy about using your own bags, in one way or another.

They were awful, weren't they? Seemed to need as many staff on hand to help out with them that could have manned enough checkouts.

But it's been sorted at my local massive B&Q in Wandsworth. They've closed it totally and are building housing on the site. ;-( Not that long ago, it was their flagship in the area.

Are you saying they don't have trolleys too?

But you can carry those like a basket if you so wish. Obviously if you fill them, may be too heavy to carry. So you should have got a trolley instead.

Do you normally keep your basket in your hand while queuing? Most put it on the ground.

At my local Lidl, there is a shelf for them at the end of the conveyor belt. Assuming you haven't made it to heavy to lift.

Wilco uses them as well

Its amazing that they can't work out how to deal with situations like this so as not to further upset customers who are already going to be pretty narked by that stage...

Contrast with an experience in Waitrose, we got the checkout and unloaded the trolley onto the belt, when the cashier worked out there was a fault with the till and she could not process the sale. So she apologised for the inconvenience, called a manager over, and they opened the till next to us, and between them transferred all the shopping to the new belt ready to process. All we needed do was watch, and then step to the head of the new queue, with those behind us asked to join the new queue in the same order.

Careful, they might increase the penalty and only ban you for a month :-)

(although to be fair to ASDA - at peak lockdown, they were the only local supermarket where I could actually get a delivery slot!)

No, some sort of turf war in the area. A k*****ad shot at another k*****ad in the street outside and missed. Sadly he took out some poor lass who *had* come to this country for the better life it can offer and was making the most of such.

My local ASDA have trolleys that supposedly lock a wheel when you go over a line of red bricks. I don't think they ever do except when you don't want them to like in the store.

A nearby Sainsbury's look as if they tried a system where the trollies have thin-tyred wheels (like they have to stick to travelators) and fixed travelator-like sections at the exits - I don't think that worked either.

They would if they removed some of their shelving and shrunk their product range. Its just plain greed. There is never any excuse for any retailer to have old dears having to reach down to the ground and then lift stuff up onto a belt or a counter. They'll have already done enough of that during their lives, as it is.

I happen to know this, as I was often stood behind them in the queue and often ended up doing most of it for them.

Around my way they also removed all the handbaskets at the same time.

I've never used baskets myself as the first thing I picked up in a Lidl was an empty carton off the shelves and used that for the few things I bought. Then the self checkouts came in. Then after that Lidl were getting undercut by Asda on a lot of stuff and I haven't been in one for months.

michael adams

...

excuse

Don't turn it on ... take it apart.