Aldi to open 100 new supermarkets including first checkout-free store
It becomes the latest retailer to move towards frictionless shopping.
A new checkout-free store is the centrepiece of Aldi’s plan to open 100 branches in the next two years.
The ‘frictionless’ supermarket in London will let customers use an app to register when they’ve entered, pick up their items and walk out, swerving the German retailer’s notoriously fast-paced checkouts.
Shortly after leaving, shoppers will be charged automatically using their pre-set payment method and emailed a receipt.
Budget supermarket Aldi also plans to open a 1.3 million sq ft logistics site in Leicestershire.
It’s plotting the £1.3 billion investment in Britain after claiming an 8.1% market share.
The new stores will take its total number to 1,020 by the end of 2023 and add 2,000 new jobs to its 41,000-employee workforce.
Click-and-collect services, which launched last September, are being expanded to 200 stores.
The store on Greenwich High Road is set to open next month, with its no-checkout technology currently being tested by employees.
Metro.co.uk understands it will be similar operationally to the Amazon Fresh which opened in Ealing in March, using a network of cameras and artificial intelligence which track the items customers take from shelves.
Tesco started trialling checkout-free shopping at its head office in Hertfordshire over the summer.
In 2019, Sainsbury’s launched a till-free grocery store, but customers pay on an app after collecting what they want.
Aldi UK chief executive Giles Hurley said: ‘We are really excited to be testing this concept that will enable customers to pick from our range of quality products, all available at unbeatable prices, then leave the store without having to pay at a till.’
The news will be music to the ears of some. Last month north Yorkshire mum Nicola Fuller, 35, said she was reduced to tears by the ‘ferocious’ speed of an Aldi cashier.
As well as making customers bag their shopping at a rate of knots, the speed demanded by the supermarket can place pressure on staff too.
A former deputy manager in 2017 said till workers were expected to scan at least 1,000 items an hour – one every 3.5 seconds.
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