Aldi and Lidl staff have to checkout your groceries at a certain rate or face getting reported.
When I mentioned this to the staff at Lidl they denied there were such pressures although I find that hard to believe.
Does anyone know what the requirements on staff are? An old post on Reddit said they had to take no longer than 3 seconds per item and no more than 2 minutes to pay up. Is this still true? What penalties do staff get?
They do seem to be motivated to get it done as quickly as possible. But seem at least as happy as those in Tesco, etc. They seem to have more breaks too - perhaps so they work faster when on the till.
Do they get penalised if a barcode doesn't read or is missing? I doubt it. And how long it takes to pay can be down to the customer.
Certainly the staff in our local Aldi are very fast but they are also very polite etc, more so than in some other supermarkets. In terms of 'politeness' etc they are on a par with Waitrose.
For those who don't use Aldi, they have a very good 'deli' range and often do some unusual meats- venison, game birds etc., at very good prices. We don't use them for general shopping but we do stop by for their deli range and special meat offers. Things like Yogurt are not as good as we like and, while their 'branded' bread is fine, the less well known stuff is grim. Their fish is often good. They used to do some excellent duck but haven't stocked it for sometime. I've yet to try their bread flour but intend to.
In article , Dave Plowman (News) scribeth thus
Sprog here did some checkout work at Sainsburys a while ago but the only hold up's were customer caused like running back to gather more items or swap them around and the fumbling that goes on to dig out their money and or find their card. You'd think anyone with any sense would have them in their hand awaiting the payment part but no!..
A constant annoyance is the customer who doesn't look for wallet / purse until the assistant tells them the total. Grrrrr! Yesterday I had a guy in front who realised his wallt was in the car. When he returned he told us, "I am always doing that, Ha Ha"
Similar to when I asked at our local family-run hardware store if they had wooden dowels. The reply was: "No, sorry. Funny, we keep on getting asked that".
There might be a way to prevent that happening...
And those who carefully pack everything at the checkout. Before even looking for their card or cash.
I tend to chuck everything back in the trolley and pack into bags at the car.
'Not what our customers want, Sir. You're the third today I've told.'
It happens as you get older, and takes up hardly any time as the checkout just presses a few keys and processes the next order and when you come back in you wait in line and the checkout person restarts the transaction and you pay,takes vastly less than a minute total time. Does not take much to get you constantly annoyed.
I have fun at the checkout by putting the divider at an angle and watch how long it is before some one straightens it, very rarely does it get to the end where you put it.
things that are annoying are people who leave large gaps on the belt or block the walkway leaving us oldies that do not use trolleys hanging on to heavy weights they can not get on to the belt.
One of the unfortunate things that has happened as Ali and Lid have become mainstream is that many of the customers no longer use the checkouts in the way they used to be operated. The procedure used to be unload trolley onto belt , move empty trolley to the "docking Station" after the till where the goods were shot into at a rate of knots as fast as the till operate could scan them, and in earlier days they often knew the price anyway . With the goods now back in the trolley the customer could then go to the packing shelves and pack into their own bags, cardboard boxes that were left around or take the trolley to a vehicle and load into that. I suppose the "gentrification" started to come in when they started to accept plastic rather than cash and while the very first stores looked a bit third world at least things were a lot cheaper. I really liked them about 5 years ago when the ranges had increased a bit, a few brighter lights so you could actually see and a good range of interesting offers to go with the ingredients for lunch such as a welder or generator to play with while the missus cooked it and debit cards were accepted so you could purchase them.
Now the great washed use them as a matter of course they have got a bit too tidy,the interesting offers while still there don't seem as exciting or as unusual as they once were and many things are not the bargain they used to be. And you have the usual suspects at the checkouts packing things slowly and then finding their purse and card is buried in a bag that a toddler is sat on.
G.Harman
Assuming you can regognise your own shopping and trying to manage without a divider sets some people off!
In message , tony sayer writes
Looking for a memory card for the dashcam I was standing dithering in front of the display in Sainsbury's of 128GB for ?15 reduced from 30. An assistant came along and changed the price to ?30. I expressed dismay and was told the price reduction still held till midnight.
Went to till and asked the price before I bought, was told ?30. I said it said 15 and related the story of my encounter with the assistant. I apologised to the queue. Supervisor was called, who went away and returned telling the cashier to override the price down to 15.
Cashier overrode price to 15 and till totalled up. Cashier said "?7.50". I expressed surprise and offered 15. Cashier looked confused, checked bill and said the 50% applied at checkout, so that was the price. The queue were smiling and insisted I stopped holding them up, so I paid and left.
I used to use the first Lidl which AFAIR opened in Abbey Wood in September 94. What was intriguing was that much of the stuff on sale was just on pallets, no doubt the same as they had been delivered to the store. Now that was a money-saving way to display goods.
Things were very cheap, relatively much more so than they appear now. Tins of tomatoes were, IIRC, 6p!
Ah. The first one that opened round here (Lidl) took debit, but not credit cards.
I bought a car jump start pack (including a built in tyre compressor and light) which looked the same as the Halfords one, but half the price. And it is still working today - used for tyres. Not sure if it would be up to jump starting, though. That first gave me the view that their tools were exceptional value for money.
That'll be the people who you've irritated with your divider antics.
In article , Bill scribeth thus
Result! Bet you legged it before they changed their minds;)..
I bought four rubber floor mats for a Nissan Micra five years ago from Aldi. ?3.99. Two weeks later I saw them in the same store for ?7.99. Five years later I sold the car, the mats were still like new. As far as it goes.
There's an idea. Penalise those who scan too slowly and hold up the rest of the queue. A penalty should be added at the end for those who failed to meet target time.
Also on the customer's speed of packing - unless they have compulsory packers - which would mean an extra person at the checkout.
The only rule I seem to see is to have half the number of tills manned as are really needed.
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