Aldi checkout staff to check shopping bags for theft in some UK stores
Some Aldi stores in the UK are ensuring that checkout staff check shopping bags for theft, as shoplifting rates increase amid the cost-of-living crisis.
Customers will now be required to put shopping bags on the checkout belt along with their shopping, to show they are empty – or to show staff the contents of any full shopping bags. However, if customers do not prove this, they will be refused service.
It is understood the checks at the German discounter are only carried out in a small number of stores and as a short-term measure. It is not national policy for the Aldi, meaning it does not state how individual stores should carry them out.
An Aldi shopworker told The Grocer the policy was introduced at their store last week, and the checks were separate to any carried out by security guards.
“We are asking that they allow us to look in the bags to see they are empty,” the shopworker said.
If a bag is not empty, “we have been asking to look in the bags to make sure none of our items are in there”.
Aldi is one of a number of retailers to have introduced new measures in stores in recent months, as shoplifting rates soar as UK families feel the squeeze on their household budgets.
For example, Sainsbury’s and Morrisons have introduced exit barriers at the self-checkout areas in some of their stores recently.
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Co-op Food MD Matt Hood this week blamed a growing sense that shoplifting is being justified, on accusations of profiteering aimed at retailers by politicians.
“I was reading some of the comments when we’ve spoken about shoplifting being on the rise and people were saying ‘well, they are making so much money, so what difference does it make?” he told the Telegraph.
It comes days after the Co-op recorded over 175,000 incidents of crime, shoplifting and anti-social behaviour in the first six months of 2023, which equates to almost 1,000 incidents a day – a 35% year-on-year increase.
29 Comments. Leave new
This is happening without notices being posted in my Aldi Store. I was deeply offended to have my bag checked as the implication is that you are shop lifting and I resent that. They cannot search your bag unless you give your permission and it should then only be by an SIA certified security guard/police. This needs to be viewed as how a reputable supermarket treats it’s customers due to their own failure to deal with the small minority of customers who shoplift. I don’t want to hear ‘if you have nothing to hide what is the problem’, the problem is the principle of honest customers being suspected of shoplifting. Aldi’s customer service email for complaints is enquiry@cs.aldi.co.uk, the email address widely advertised does not work, a sure fire way of avoiding complaints. Telephone no 0800 042 0800.
Thanks Willow, I have just received the same treatment in my local Aldi. I’m absolutely fuming as there is no signage but the checkout man is telling me its policy.
I asked when and where the policy displayed in store because I shopped there last week and wasnt asked for my bags to be examined. He couldn’t answer my question. I again asked why my bags were being checked and customers in the till next to his were not being asked anything. Yet again he couldn’t answer. I shall be using the email address provided by you – this has ruined my day!
This is the email I have just posted to Aldi:
Hello,
I am a 71 year old gentleman, who shops in your store and have done so for several years.
However, I will not be shopping with you ever again, [Wollaston store near Stourbridge, West Midlands].
I take great exception to having my shopping bag inspected for possible shop lifting.
This is an affront to my honesty and integrity, and this practise is a disgrace on the part of your company.
I was brought up by god fearing wonderful honest parents, which is also an affront to them.
You should be ashamed of yourselves, if you cannot implement a proper procedure to stop shoplifting,
other than assume everyone in your store may be a shoplifter, “so let’s check all of our bags, and insinuate we are all criminals”.
VERY ANGRY, NO LONGER A CUSTOMER,
John Smith.
Completely agree agree with you sir it happened to me today they never asked anyone else staff never said why or anything it scared my disabled daughter who was with me I won’t be shopping there again
Staff are being forced to check fir the sake of Cctv. I literally unfolded an empty bag i front of a checkout assistant who then proceeded to ask me to check the bag, I queried it and said you literally just watched me open it out and was told its fir the camera. I personally think its to move more people to self service. They want to close down tills that have staff so are using nudge to move customers.
It is embarrassing and humiliating to have the cashier ask to look in your bags especially when the cashiers often previously used to have a quick chat about items such as specialbuys, often recommending them or asking me about them. It has changed the whole shopping experience so I have started to shop elsewhere.
My wife also went through this humiliating experience in Aldi. Aldi have pushed this responsibility on to the hard working shop staff to carry out a potentially confrontational situation. We have taken our business else where!
take your pet tarantula out for some fresh air in your shopping bag along with a few other items … i suspect once aldi loses half its checkout workforce through trauma and shock and they put in where’s there a blame there’s a claim at work … this policy will end as quick as it started
It’s a bad move as they are obviously going to loose customers which in comparison to theft is going to hit them harder
I too am imbarrased to be asked accusingly to look in my obviously empty shopping bags, I will shop elsewhere from now on
I have used my local aldi for 5 years plus never been any issues until this last month being asked to look into my shopping bags it’s horrible people thinking you are shoplifting I work for a major retailer for nearly twenty years and they wouldn’t treat people like this it’s wrong aldi hang your heads in shame
When asked to open my bags by the male till operator I suggested that he may but under the condition that if he found anything of Aldi’s in my bag he could get to call the police. Should he find nothing then for implying I was a thief he would get a smack in the mouth. Sheepishly, he put all my goods through the till.
Yes I also was asked to open my bags even though they were folded flat as I went through the checkout. It’s embarrassing and unnecessary and I left feeling very anxious. I called the number that the lady at the top of these comments provided and the customer care officer was very apologetic and agreed it was unnecessary as my bags were folded.
I think I understand the thinking behind this but it’s so very flawed. If I was to enter a store, as a lot do, with a bag hooked on the back of the trolley what’s to stop me filling my bag and trolley with goods and on being asked about the contents of my bag refuse them a look see and then have to leave?
I have been shopping in the Aldi in Pocklington since it opened but after being humiliated there this afternoon by a staff member asking to look in my bag I will not be going in again. I wasted 30 minutes on a call to customer services then tried without success to find an email address for the CEO.
Walton-on-Thames branch rolling this out.
Watched the cashier run after a mature lady and her adult son (who has learning difficulties) and take them to the packing area to search through her bag. She looked mortified and embarrassed by the whole episode that was being played out in front of a busy store.
Cashier then proceeded to ask me to look into my flimsy 10p bag from the Co-op, which contained a small box of tea bags from Poundland.
Utterly shambolic and impersonal way to do this and it will be the last time I shop in that store.
I think is disgusting want to look in customers personal bags, not everyone steals from there shop, shows that they don’t trust people, and if you refused your not allowed to buy what on the belt , Aldi have definitely lost our custom, other people may feel the same,
I too was very taken aback today when I visited my newly rebuilt
Aldi for the first time. I was asked by the checkout lady to show the contents of my bag, it was empty all but for two Xmas cards bought elsewhere. She even went as far as looking at each one individually to make sure they were not from the store. She then scanned my items. When I asked why this was happening I was told it was ‘policy’. Maybe, but is it legal?? I don’t think I will be going back any time soon!
As a side note, my local Matalan often has a security staff member posted at the exit. If they see you have one of their carrier bags, they ask to see your till receipt. Pretty pointless if they don’t check your items against the receipt….
There are two Aldi stores equidistant from my house. One checks the bags but not the other. It is actually more convenient for me to use the one which does check bags, but after the way I have been treated by the staff, I shall no longer use them, and shall use the nearby Lidl instead. I take a big bag of plastic for recycling but the bin in which to put it is in the outside lobby, so you have to take it all round the shop and past the till in order to get rid of it. My bags are folded up in the trolley. You couldn’t secrete anything in them if you tried, but last week, when challenged, I was told I might have hidden a packet of paracetamol! Ye gods! As far as I am concerned, the law is ‘innocent until proven guilty’ but Aldi are presuming you are guilty before you can prove your innocence. Like all the other correspondents I take it as a personal insult to be spoken to like this, and will never use that store again.
Aldi St. Leonards on Sea
My husband and I have shopped at Aldi for about 15 years and it has always been our main store. Today we had shopping which would have been at least £100. The cashier said he would have to check our bags. We refused and asked to see the manager. A young girl came out of the office and was obviously not the manager. She told us our bags must be checked as it was Aldi policy or they could not serve us. We walked out leaving our shopping and will never use Aldi again. Until they stop treating their customers like criminals we will not use them.
I was asked the other day and only let them because i had no personal items in the bag ,but if they ask again they will instantly loose my custom
I had a bag search yesterday evening at Aldi Newmarket, Suffolk.
I was told by a miserable, rude, male member of staff, that he had to check my bag.
There was no other conversation, no eye contact, a poker faced cashier who had just came to serve me through the conveyor belt checkout, I had a trolley of shopping, to much for self checkout.
He, the cashiers, micro expressions, without eye contact, strongly suggested he suspected me of thieving.
My goods were still on the conveyor belt.
I showed my bag and asked him if he suspected me of shoplifting, which he replied it’s Aldi policy and he can get a manager.
Which I replied, don’t bother, I’ll call customer service and place a complaint, of which he ignored and got management involved, where a make manager asked him to apologise, but I said that I did not want an insincere apology forced by management. It’s not the first that the cashier had done this to a customer, as I had witnessed the same cashier involve management at the checkout to another female customer.
The cashier would not finish putting my order through the till until the more senior manageress came, although I was asking him to finish my transaction so i could leave. He treated me like dirt, humiliating and distressing in front of several other customers.
The anxiety and stress from the open exposure of being targeted for suspicion of shoplifting is damaging.
Aldi’s you are a disgrace to your customers and I’m pretty sure this could be breaking laws.
Been engaged in a lengthy discussion with Aldi after a very embarrasing experience with bag search/check a couple of weeks ago.
Initially their CS said it was a short term measure but when the store manager called me he admitted that while the policy hit the biggest shoppers with more bags hardest. He told me straight that the policy is here to stay before he started blowing his trumpet about how much potential theft they had avoided.
I said that I found the whole thing cringingly embarrasing and that they could obviously do what they want in their stores but that I wouldn’t be part of it.
That was the end of a 15 year weekly family shopping relationship with Aldi and this is our second week back at Tesco. Yes, it’s a bit more expensive but for me anyway, better than the alternative. I hope many other people vote with their feet.
not a reply but question if you have a different supermarkets name on your bags and you go to aldi and bags are empty can checkout staff legally ask to look inside
This happened to me at my local Aldi in Walton-on- the-Naze. I have shopped there weekly since it opened. I’ve never felt so humiliated. The cashier called the manager because i refused to show my bags. I will be taking my custom elsewhere.
I am a pensioner. My main shopping is at Lidl store, few store away from Aldi. On this occasion I visited Aldi as I needed a few small items which were out of stock at Lidl.
I went into Aldi with an empty shopping bag. At the counter, I was asked by the cashier if ‘If I mind to look into my shopping bag’. This is the same cashier who served me on my last visit months ago and also asked to see my shopping bag.
I was not aware of the (bag check Policy) until this incident. There were no signage at the store to inform customers of the (bag check policy)
Aldi has breached (bag check Policy) for not complying to the Data Protection of vulnerable customers. All stores have CCTV to view any suspicious customer of intention for theft and I felt that I was targeted in this incident. In addition, it is illegally for any staff to check customers bag unless they have training SIA..
I today was mortified to be targeted at a check out till by a check out clerk and utterly humiliated as a paying customer to be forced to open and show shopping bags that I came in with and even then being forced to log into my banking app and show conformation that I had paid for my items. There was a que of people behind me and they was also upset that I was treated in such away. What has the world come to I doubt very much that thieves que up and pay at a till. What is this world coming too. Doubt will shop there again.
Why are Aldi being allowed to get away with this.I myself had my bag searched so humiliating. Rang customer services just said it was their policy awful will shop elsewhere in future.