Aldi is planning the supermarket revolution.
The role model is the Internet giant Amazon.
Queuing at the supermarket checkout should be a thing of the past.
Mühlheim / London - Long queues at the supermarket checkout cloud the mood of every customer.
The discounter Aldi is planning the revolution: Waiting times should therefore be a thing of the past.
With a test run, Aldi wants to find out whether the plan works.
Aldi wants to test supermarket without cash register - role model: Amazon
In Great Britain, the German company is now one of the largest supermarket chains: In the United Kingdom alone, the discounter operates 920 branches - it is the fifth largest chain on the island. In Germany, the company was for a long time number one of the most popular discounters, but has recently been relegated to second place. Aldi is popular in the UK. However, what depresses the mood of customers a lot, worldwide, are long queues at the checkout. Aldi would like to try a new solution for this - and possibly stir up the market.
In its new project, Aldi is taking the internet giant Amazon as a model.
It started a revolution in Great Britain as well as in the USA: The online giant operates several supermarkets under the name “Amazon Fresh” in the UK, or as “Amazon Go” in the USA.
The specialty: the branches manage completely without a till.
Customers shop with an app.
The purchase price is automatically debited from your account.
Tesco, another well-known chain of stores, is currently testing a similar system.
Aldi: Shop with smartphone, without cash register - test begins
Now Aldi is also starting a test run of shopping with an app and without a cash register.
Exactly where is not yet clear.
Only the London location has already leaked.
Customers can therefore shop with their smartphones.
Special sensors register which products they are packing.
When you leave the store, the app automatically debits the purchase price from your account.
The Aldi boss on the island, Giles Hurley, is looking forward to this test run: "We are always striving to redefine what it means to be a discounter," he wrote in a press release.
"The technology used in this test will give us a lot of insight."
Discounter: branches are testing new system - also in Germany?
In the initial phase of the pilot project, employees of the discounter should try out how cash-free shopping works.
Real customers should only be able to do that later.
Aldi had announced that it would invest heavily in Great Britain.
Aldi has not yet announced that it will also carry out these tests outside of Great Britain, for example in Germany.
Several retail chains in Germany recently announced that they would also like to test markets without cash registers, including Edeka, Lidl and Kaufland.
(dst)
